On An Overgrown Path

Revelations about Grigory Sokolov's objection to joining Norman Lebrecht as a winner of a Cremona Music Award continue apace . But, somewhat surprisingly, nobody has asked the question as to what exactly the Cremona Music Awards are. So as professional journalism, or otherwise, is at the heart of the debate, I thought I would exercise some due diligence and share my findings with readers. The Cremona Music Awards were instigated in 2014, which is when Lebrecht won his. The four annual awards have the aim of promoting "the commitment and work of artists and journalists who provided a real contribution to the ever increasing role of music in the culture of entire populations and individuals". This is a very laudable objective; but the awards also have the objective of generating interest in Cremona Mondomusica . This is an annual string music instrument fair held in Cremona in September, at which the awards are presented; after which the fair is repeated in New York ....

In India the Sanskrit word sangita now means music ; but it originally meant drama and dance as well as music, and all three performing arts are closely associated. But Western art music is viewed primarily as an aural artform with only very limited exploitation of the the visual element. Which means that, to date, the kinesthetic component - gestures, body movements, and positioning - has been ignored. Which is a mistake, because music is a complex blend of the aural, visual and kinesthetic, as my header image shows. It was taken by me on Sunday during the 91 year old Marshall Allen 's impressively engaging set with his Magic Science Quartet on the Barbican's Freestage. Marshall Allen, who is a disciple of Sun Ra , was performing in the Barbican's 'Transcender' weekend . The centrepiece of this was a concert by the celebrated Pakistani Sufi musicians Sain Zahoor and Faiz Ali Faiz ; an event which, incidentally, sold out months in advance. Readers will know...

It might be foolish to pine for some bygone golden age of journalism - the industry has always had its challenges and its discontents. But one can say that the advent of digital media has done little to improve the journalists' lot. Fewer jobs, less pay and stability for those who remain (unless you're an executive), no separation between work and home life (a condition cemented by the expectation to be always on social media), declining rates for freelancers, and a general societal disregard for the value of journalism - these are the conditions of journalism in the social-media era. For every newly minted digital journalist establishing his personal brand with ten or twenty thousand Twitter followers - with time that could be spent reporting or writing for his employer rather than Twitter Inc - many others face unemployment or a version of the old joke: "Sure, we lose money on every article, but we make it up in volume."[] The existential anxieties surrounding...

There are many, including this writer, who experienced schadenfreude at the news that Grigory Sokolov has refused the 2015 Cremona Music Award because Norman Lebrecht is a previous winner. But allowing ourselves anything other than a quick chuckle would be a mistake. Because Grigory Sokolov's brave gesture does not just lambast Lebrecht: it also criticises everyone in an industry that has replaced artistic integrity with gimmicks and sensationalism. In his immensely important study of social media Terms of Service Jacob Silverman defines churnalism as "cheap, disposable content repurposed from press releases, news reports, viral media, social networks, and elsewhere, all of it practically out-of-date and irrelevant as soon as someone clicks Publish". If that sounds dreadfully familiar, read on as Jacob Silverman describes how: More toxic than this focus on quantification has been the way in which digital media has adopted the general tenor of the viral Web - its spee...

Dear Mr. Bianchedi, ladies and gentlemen of Comitato Artistico di Cremona Mondomusica e Piano Experience. I refuse to receive the prize , Cremona Music Award 2015. According to my ideas about elementary decency, it is shame to be in the same award-winners list with Lebrecht. G. Sokolov 16.9.15 Good to see that at least one fine musician has his principles and is sticking to them. Any copyrighted material on these pages is included for critical analysis only, and will be removed at the request of copyright owner(s). Also on Facebook and Twitter .

A story is circulating based on a website report , that Grigory Sokolov has refused the 2015 Cremona Music Award because Norman Lebrecht is a previous winner. But, in an example of supreme irony, there are doubts as to whether the story is true. Also on Facebook and Twitter . Any copyrighted material is included for the purpose of study and will be removed at the request of copyright owner(s).

Since no one really knows anything about God, those who think they do are just troublemakers That poem is by Daniel Ladinsky . It is inspired by Rabiʿa al-Basri (c717-801), the female Muslim saint and Sufi mystic whose teachings are thought to have influenced Rumi, and it comes from Ladinsky's Love Poems from God . My recent listening has included Renaud García-Fons ' new album La Línea Del Sur which includes three songs with lyrics inspired by Rumi performed by flamenco virtuoso Esperanza Fernández . No review samples used in this post. Any copyrighted material is included as "fair use" for critical analysis only, and will be removed at the request of copyright owner(s). Also on Facebook and Twitter .

In my twenties, I used to fret that I could never seem to feel at home in any spiritual tradition. It stirred me deeply to take part in Sufi movements in London, but it didn't mean I was a Muslim. I appreciated sitting in silence with the Zen people, but was equally reluctant to call myself a Buddhist. Yet I always felt I must be missing something, that I was a spiritual window-shopper who was reluctant to get more than his toes wet. As I have grown older and come to trust more the promptings of my own inner world, those concerns have fallen away. What is free of concept and image , as Hafez would say, is sheer alive presence - the love that ultimately burns us away. My faith is in that and in the aspirations of secular humanism; together they make for a secular spirituality. The equality of men and women, human rights, education and the democratic progress, environmental research - achievements like these surely embody some of the best of what it means to be human. They are exerc...

I sort of come to this conclusion at the end of every Prom season having had most of the concerts I've attended ruined by some buffoonery or other. Attending concerts isn't just parking your posterior on the seat and listening; there are all the attendant costs, financial and otherwise that have to be considered. Booking the concerts, fixing holidays at work, paying for the seat, travel, hotel and meals. I'd hazard a guess that I spent well in excess of £1000 at this year's Proms and when I have concert after concert ruined by coughers and other avoidable distractions I have to ask if it's worth it. It never used to be like this. That comment is part of a discussion on the Radio 3 Forum which includes a reference to my recent post about buffoonery in the concert hall . Similar sentiments are being expressed elsewhere about the Proms audience; a group reputed to be one of classical music's best behaved audiences. My post was sparked by a serially-interrupted co...

'When people believe in boundaries, they become part of them.' That quote comes from Don Cherry who is seen above with Manfred Eicher . It was taken in 1978 at Tonstudio Bauer in Ludwigsburg during the recording for ECM of Codona , the first album in the classic Codona Trilogy . Also on Facebook and Twitter . Any copyrighted material is included as "fair use" for critical analysis only, and will be removed at the request of copyright owner(s).

Classical music's prosecco activists tweeted 'Je suis Charlie' in fervent support of the right to publish a cartoon that is clearly offensive to an ethnic group. Now the same activists are howling in protest - "stupid, crass and inexcusable" - about the publication in a BBC Proms programme of a cartoon - see above - that is questionably offensive to another ethnic group. Also on Facebook and Twitter . Any copyrighted material is included as "fair use" for critical analysis only, and will be removed at the request of copyright owner(s).

Last week I was distinctly underwhelmed by a classical concert in Marseille. This week I was distinctly overwhelmed by a modern dance performance in the city's Théâtre National de La Criée. ' Extremalism ' has been created by Emio Greco and Pieter C. Scholten for the Ballet National de Marseille and ICKamsterdam , with music by Bjork collaborator the Icelandic composer Valgeir Sigurdsson . It is a ninety minute exercise in testing creative comfort zones which subscribes to the admirable philosophy that art should be dangerous : see production photo above and video via this link . The performance I attended was rapturously received by an attentive and near-capacity audience with a demographic that contrasted sharply with that for L'Orchestre Philharmonique de Marseille playing Mahler, Liszt and R. Strauss the previous week. Yes, the contrasting ambience of the two performances was very striking. But what was even more striking was how 'Extremalism' pushed th...

Prompted by my post about the rise of champagne activism in classical music, a reader points out that the "the ever ultra chic Kronos Quartet, allegedly founded by a dissenter form the Vietnam war, has no problem with collecting the Benjamins from Abu Dhabi" - see above . To which I would add that Ivan Fischer, who is in the news for appealing to the EU for generosity towards refugees, has also been collecting the Benjamins from Abu Dhabi - see below . Presumably the hectic schedules of Maestro Fischer and the Kronos did not allow them to read this section of the Human Rights Watch 2015 Report on the United Arab Emirates : Nearly five years after Human Rights Watch first revealed systematic human rights violations of migrant workers on Abu Dhabi’s Saadiyat Island, a development project which will host branches of the Louvre and Guggenheim museums and New York University, some employers continued to withhold wages and benefits from workers, failed to reimburse recruiting...

In his eye-opening analysis of the impact of social media Terms of Service , Jacob Silverman observes that the fundamental principle of Facebook is that everything - dating, browsing photos, playing games, and listening to music - is better with other people watching. Now the frightening success of Facebook - a highly profitable $12.5 billion turnover business that proves the tech adage that if you're not paying for the product, you are the product - has been seized on by classical music's new gurus. So I am told by the Southbank Centre's head of music Gillian Moore that if the person in the seat next to me breaks her eminently sensible suggested concert etiquette by using a mobile phone to tell friends they are in a concert, I should simply "be nice to them". Now Ms Moore is quite right in restating that, unlike social media, civility is a fundamental principle of concert etiquette. But, in my view, she is quite wrong in surrendering to the Facebook mindse...

At a recent concert by the Orchestre Philharmonique de Marseille in the city's uber-cool but acoustically atrocious Silo auditorium - see photo above - I found myself sitting behind two parents and their three young children. Now the youngsters were as attentive as you can expect sub-teenagers to be during a performance of Mahler's Des Knaben Wunderhorn ; but the same cannot be said of their parents. For the first fifteen minutes of the song cycle the father answered emails on his smartphone. He then proceeded to unwrap a picnic with much rustling of paper, and consumed - among other culinary delights - a large and very crunchy baguette stuffed with seriously malodorous cheese. This Marseillaise audience was now on a roll, or rather a baguette; so they followed the fashionable example of Proms audiences by not waiting until the end of the Mahler to express their appreciation. But they were less familiar with Des Knaben Wunderhorn than their London counterparts. Which me...

Champagne activism has joined 'Jerusalem' and 'Rule Britannia' as one of the great traditions of the Last Night of the Proms. Don't get me wrong: gender equality is badly needed in classical music. On An Overgrown Path was saying precisely that years before the female cause was taken up elsewhere, and Marin Alsop's advocacy at the Last Night of the Proms is to be applauded. But attitudes within the musical establishment are at the heart of the problem, and figures such as Marin Alsop - who is heading for the million dollar club of U.S. music directors - and fellow Last Night activist Joyce DiDonato - who has made herself one of classical music's most valuable brands - are very much part of the establishment. By an auspicious coincidence, while Marin Alsop was pleading the female case at the BBC Proms last night, six musicians from the other side of the celebrity tracks were pleading the same case elsewhere. The all-women jazz/world music ensemble ...

The performing arts are so much part of Hindu culture that the poet W. B. Yeats was moved to write that Indian music is ‘not an art, but life itself’. To understand that assertion fully we must ponder on the two seemingly simple, but in reality almost unanswerable questions of what is Hinduism? And what is Hindu music? Hinduism and its sub-traditions Contrary to popular belief, the word Hindu does not have a religious root. It originated as the Indo-Aryan name for the Indus River that flows through the north of present-day India and Pakistan. The Persians used the name Hindu in the eighth century to describe the people living beyond the Indus River, denoting their geographic location rather than their religion. Today, however, the term Hinduism is used to describe a heterogeneous religious tradition which has evolved on the Indian subcontinent over thousands of years. This tradition is now practised by around one billion Hindus, not just on the subcontinent but in the regions s...

The BBC has today set out proposals for its own future as part of the Royal Charter review debate. Coverage of a speech by director general Tony Hall - seen above - is given headline status on the BBC news website and states that*: The BBC is expected to ask the government for money to fund the world services - which it will match with funds raised by commercial enterprises such as BBC World News. Licence fee income will not be used. The World Service proposals are part of an ongoing battle against state-sponsored news organisations such as Al-Jazeera, China Central Television (CCTV) and RT (previously Russia Today), which command huge resources and now broadcast to viewers in the UK. Al-Jazeera is controversially funded by the Qatari government , but, despite this, has won a slew of awards . The network does not publish budget figures; but informed estimates of the "huge resources" it commands place its annual budget at around £66 million ($100 m) . By comparison the BB...

Jonathan Harvey described his acclaimed opera 'Wagner Dream ' as "a fantasy, based on fact but following it way beyond what is known". The opera is a fictional account of the last days of Wagner's life; but it is informed by historical knowledge of Wagner's interest in Buddhism and the existence of his short prose sketch for a Buddhist themed opera titled Die Sieger (The Victors). 'Wagner Dream', which dates from 2007, is the best known musical conflation of Wagner and Buddhism; however, my research recently uncovered another little-known conflation dating from almost a century earlier. Paul Carus was born at Ilsenburg, Germany in 1852 into a Protestant family. He studied in Germany and served in Bismark's army, but his increasingly liberal views prompted him to emigrate to the United States in 1884. As managing editor of Open Court Publishing , a publisher devoted to philosophy, science, and religion, he wrote pioneering books and articles...