Classical music has a cult following

Classical music and an "evil cult" are unlikely bedfellows. But my fun story Stockhausen, chaotic music and communism about the oboeist of the Divine Performing Arts Orchestra proved to be a bit more serious than I thought. Several readers have pointed out that the orchestra and The Epoch Times newspaper which ran the story are closely connected with Falun Gong.

A BBC website is headed 'Falun Gong - an evil cult?' and goes on to say 'Claiming to be an ancient technique of self-development, Falun Gong is an eclectic mixture of Taoist and Buddhist principles with a sprinkling of extraterrestrials ... On 22 July, 1999, Falun Gong was declared an 'evil cult' by the Beijing authorities, and totally banned, meriting 'a serious ideological and political struggle that would have a bearing on the future of the Communist Party and the State ... in terms of typical cult techniques, Falun Gong is given a 50:50 Yes/No rating by Time Asia. While it is led by a charismatic leader, fosters an 'us versus them' attitude, and uses jargon that outsiders don't understand, it does not exert pressure on people to join, its believers do not remove themselves from society, nor are they required to donate large sums of money, their homes, jobs, and so on, to a central organisation.'

An unconnected bit of trivia is that I was in Guyana shortly before the dreadful Jonestown mass suicides in 1978. On a much more positive note Georgetown, Guyana, which we were visiting, was the birthplace of the Berlin Philharmonic's first black conductor.
Header image showing Falun Gong members is from a useful article in The Johnsonian, newspaper of Winthrop University. Report broken links, missing images and errors to - overgrownpath at hotmail dot co dot uk

Echoes of Rudolph Dunbar on BBC Radio 4

My article on the little known black Guyanese conductor and clarinettist Rudolph Dunbar (above), which I published here on April 23 2007, has attracted a large number of readers according to my server logs, including a number from the BBC. My story ran under the headline Berlin Philharmonic's First Black Conductor, and is also linked from Wikipedia.

Dunbar's inspirational story needs to reach a wider audience, so I was delighted to find BBC Radio 4 broadcasting the Strange Story of Rudolph Dunbar today (August 7 2007). Here is the BBC blurb:

Strange Story of Rudolph Dunbar
Tuesday 7 August 2007 11:30-12:00 (Radio 4 FM)
Wayne Marshall tells the story of Rudolph Dunbar.

Born into poverty in British Guiana, Dunbar became a well-known jazz and classical clarinettist as well as having a European career as a classical conductor.

Despite becoming the first black man to conduct at the Royal Albert Hall and having conducted the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra just days after the end of the Second World War, Dunbar ended his life in obscurity in Britain, convinced that the BBC in particular had barred his way to greater things.

You can to listen to the BBC programme on demand until August 15 here. Following my article as you listen to the broadcast is really quite interesting.

Any copyrighted material on these pages is included as "fair use", for the purpose of study, review or critical analysis only, and will be removed at the request of copyright owner(s). Report broken links, missing images and other errors to - overgrownpath at hotmail dot co dot uk