Category: Classical music

(JTA) – In the first 10 minutes of the new film “Tár,” a conductor played by Cate Blanchett discusses the Hebrew concepts of “teshuvah” and “kavanah,” along with her affinity for Leonard Bernstein — all while being interviewed by the real-life Jewish writer Adam Gopnik at a New Yorker event.

It’s an auspicious Jewish opening for a movie that gives no indication that its main character and driving force — Lydia Tár, played by Blanchett — has a personal connection to Judaism. But “Tár,” which follows a fictional female genius in the classical music world as she grapples with demons past and present, is wrestling with big ideas about art, culture and society — including the role that Jews, and antisemitism, have historically played in music.

The film is winning rave reviews and early Oscar buzz in part for how convincingly Blanchett and writer-director Todd Field portray Lydia Tár as a powerful, terrifying and abusive force in the world of high culture. Many have reported leaving the movie convinced, through the sheer force of its world-building and Blanchett’s deeply committed performance, that Tár was a real person.

With every detail so convincingly sketched out, the amount of Jewishness on display is surely no accident.

Here are some of the big Jewish ideas in “Tár,” which is now playing in theaters. (Spoilers for the movie follow.)

Leonard Bernstein is an inspiration.

In the world of the film, Lydia Tár is a celebrated conductor and composer who credits legendary Jewish conductor Leonard Bernstein as both her early inspiration and her mentor.

Bernstein’s influence, and his Judaism, get a lot of playtime in Tár’s early scene with Gopnik, which takes place at the New Yorker Ideas Festival. (This is also where Gopnik excitedly notes that Tár has won an EGOT, or an Emmy, Grammy, Oscar and Tony; he adds that Jewish comic Mel Brooks is one of the only other figures to have received an EGOT, to knowing chuckles from the audience.)

Late in the movie we see a snippet of Bernstein’s famous televised “Young People’s Concerts,” in which he introduced children to classical music; the implication is that these concerts were what pushed Tár to envision a life for herself in the arts.

Tár’s affinity for Bernstein makes the film an unexpected companion piece to “Maestro,” Bradley Cooper’s own biopic of the composer, scheduled to be released on Netflix next year.

Jewish concepts become musical terms.

Speaking to Gopnik, Tár says she learned from Bernstein not only how to appreciate classical music, but also how to think of it in Hebrew terms. Two phrases stick with her in particular: kavanah, or “intention,” and teshuvah, or “return.”

Tár’s own interpretation of these ideas puts an artistic lens on their meaning in Jewish tradition, where they’re most often used in connection to prayer and repentance. She sees kavanah as respecting the intent of the music’s original composer while also imposing the conductor’s own intent, and she sees teshuvah as an extension of the conductor’s grandiose belief that they can “control time itself”: winding back the clock on a piece, holding the orchestra in a suspended state until the leader chooses to move on.

Of course, Tár’s public life, much like her life on the conductor’s podium, is a kind of performance she delivers (with finely attuned intention). So it’s possible she’s using so much Hebrew in these early scenes because she knows her audience of New Yorker aficionados includes a good deal of Jews.

But there’s another hidden meaning to the inclusion of teshuvah beyond the pages of a musical score. Jewish teachings also understand that the word, frequently invoked on Yom Kippur, refers to the concept of seeking atonement for past sins. Tár, as it turns out, has a lot of past sins she needs to atone for, and her failure to do so ultimately leads to her downfall.

Whether she can ever find forgiveness is a question the film declines to answer, but the concluding scenes see her begin what appears to be a process of humility, on a long road to redemption: the inklings of teshuvah.

Gustav Mahler is omnipresent.

The Austrian-born Jewish composer-conductor is a spirit who haunts the edges of the film. Mahler is Tár’s most revered artist; at the film’s outset she has recorded performances of all of his symphonies save No. 5, often considered one of the most complex and memorable pieces of music ever written.

Much of the film is devoted to Tár’s efforts to finally record Mahler’s fifth symphony, and to lead the Berlin Philharmonic (where she is head conductor) in a live performance of it. An ad for this performance makes the connection between the two explicit, placing Tár and Mahler in equally sized headshots. In addition, much of the film takes place in Germany, and a mid-film discussion of the classical music world’s denazification reminds us that Mahler’s own music (as well as that of many Jewish composers) was banned and suppressed by the Nazis.

Why Mahler? In addition to his stature as a conductor, the film is also drawing parallels to his history of manipulative behavior. Characters discuss how he suppressed and discouraged his composer wife, Alma, from pursuing her own musical career, much as Tár comes to do to her own subordinates. (Alma’s own documented history of antisemitism, despite her marriage to a Jew, goes unremarked upon.)

And perhaps a more subtle connection: Mahler was well-known for his reinterpretations of the works of composer-conductor Richard Wagner, famously an antisemite and race theorist whose ideas about ethnic superiority inspired the Nazis. Tár, too, as a pioneering woman in an industry dominated by misogynists, finds herself reinterpreting the works of men who would have hated her for who she is — but her fierce defense of classical music’s old guard indicates that, far from trying to separate their work from their toxic behavior, she may actually admire both in equal measure.

The Israel Philharmonic is name-dropped.

As an acclaimed conductor, Tár has of course been invited to some of the most prestigious orchestras in the world. In the film, one of the only ones that mentioned by name is the Israel Philharmonic.

The name-dropping comes in a discussion with a friendly rival conductor, Elliot Kaplan (played by Mark Strong), who is himself Jewish. The Salieri to Tár’s Mozart, Kaplan is amazed that she managed to coax such a remarkable performance out of the Tel Aviv-based orchestra.

Tár brushes off his compliments (and his requests to peek at her musical notations), but the two do get into a further discussion about klezmer music.

Yes, Nazis come up.

About that denazification: The question of how to treat great artists alongside their toxic behavior is one of the biggest themes of “Tár,” which is being hailed as the first great movie about “cancel culture.” And music’s connection to Nazis and antisemitism becomes a kind of signpost for where Tár’s own patterns of abusive behavior may lead her.

In the film, Tár’s former mentor Andris (played by Julian Glover) is still nursing a grudge that even German musicians who were not card-carrying Nazi Party members were included in denazification efforts (and also expresses sympathy for American Jewish conductor James Levine, who experienced a fall from grace owing to decades of sexual misconduct). As a member of the generation before Tár’s, Andris is even less scrupulous than she when it comes to reckoning with artists’ bad behavior: “I made sure all the hangers in my closet were facing the same direction,” he says, ominously.

The scene comes after Tár berates a Julliard class full of young adults for what she sees as their eagerness to get offended by the sins of classical giants, pointing out that some of the so-called enlightened composers they want to embrace instead have also been antisemitic in the past.

It’s all of a piece for the character, who — Gopnik tells us early on — wants modern-day female conductors and composers to be “in conversation with” the old male greats. Likewise, “Tár” is a film very much in conversation with Jews, music, high culture and the sins of the past.

We began the show by asking our listener’s how they feel about Elon Musk buying Twitter.

Lyndia Downie, the president of the Pine Street Inn, discussed the organization’s plan to build more than 100 studio apartments for homeless individuals at a former Comfort Inn in Dorchester despite the steep opposition from neighbors and local leaders. She also discussed the ongoing tension between the city of Boston and the state when it comes to homeless encampments at the area near Massachusetts Avenue and Melnea Cass Boulevard, and how Boston’s homeless population has dipped by 25% over two years.

Callie Crossley talked about the divorce between Tom Brady and Giselle Bunchden. She also predicted the impact of Elon Musk buying Twitter, and weighed in on how the media covered John Fetterman’s performance during his Pennsylcania senatorial debate with Dr. Mehmet Oz. Crossley is the host of GBH’s Under the Radar.

Irene Li and Steven “Nookie” Postal brought food and talked about their respective journeys to reaching success in Boston’s cuisine scene. Li’s Mei Mei Dumplings has a new cafe and dumpling factory opening in South Boston. “Nookie” provided updates about his restaurants, the Revival Café and Commonwealth Cambridge.

Deborah Z. Porter and Gish Jen stopped by to give a rundown on what to expect at the Boston Book Festival this weekend. Porter is the director of the Boston Book Festival. Jen is an award-winning author.

BLKBOK, born Charles Wilson III, performed during the latest segment of Live Music Fridays. He’s a Detroit-based classical pianist who’s worked with artists like Justin Timberlake and Rihanna. He had a show at City Winery on Thursday night.

We ended the show by asking our listeners to call in and tell us about their favorite Halloween candy.

Over the last few years i’ve been more and more deeply impressed by the music of Icelandic composer and performer Bára Gísladóttir. First contact was at the Dark Music Days in 2020, when i saw her in action with Skúli Sverrisson, forming a complex double bass / electric bass soundworld that caught me off guard and took some time to process. That experience was nourished by subsequent encounters with Gísladóttir’s solo album HĪBER (one of my best albums of 2020) and, the following year, her double album with Sverrisson Caeli (one of my best albums of 2021) which took what i’d witnessed in Reykjavík and expanded it into a massive 2-hour immersion. Which brings us to 2022, and to the nicely-timed coincidence of two new releases featuring Gísladóttir as both composer and performer.

The first is another of her collaborations with Skúli Sverrisson, recorded earlier this year at the Louth Contemporary Music Festival. The album comprises two sets lasting around 26 and 11 minutes respectively, and the first thing to say is that they’re markedly different in tone from both what i heard at the Dark Music Days as well as the majority of Caeli. There’s a gentleness that pervades these two performances, such that even though they don’t shy away from substantial surges and even dense walls of sound, these are matched by a restraint that indicates a motivation more concerned with articulating than with overwhelming.

It’s not just about restraint, though; throughout both of these sets there’s an emphasis on pitch (and, to an extent, harmony) that, over time, sounds increasingly significant. This is in part due to the way these elements persist through what amount to some pretty intense vicissitudes of noise and sonic dirt. The opening of ‘Set 2’ locates the possibility of pure tones in the midst of a dark cloud, though their purity is soon rendered grainy and fuzzy. It establishes a paradigm of liminal clarity in which a subsequent dronal passage acts to stabilise everything. The centre of ‘Set 2’ is a lengthy oasis, traces of movement and ideas rendered soft-edged, floating in a semi-suspended environment. For the longest time – and despite the presence of further drones – there doesn’t appear to be any effort or possibility to resolve either the pitch tension or the nebulosity of that extended middle sequence; yet somehow, something akin to a ‘tonic’ emerges a couple of minutes before the end. It’s a moment that’s silently catalytic, triggering the music to turn increasingly intimate as it finally dies away.

Throughout ‘Set 2’, the duo are almost impossible to separate, melding together into a single entity, whereas in ‘Set 1’ they’re more divergent. Furthermore, being over twice as long as ‘Set 2’, it’s also much more dramatically extensive. The tension resulting from a similar (un)clarity of pitch has a parallel in the way Gísladóttir and Sverrisson oscillate the structure between passages where melodic or harmonic elements are heard in the midst of varying amounts of obfuscation, and passages of more dronal focus, which act almost like breathers, relaxing things before pushing forward into another period of tension. i spoke of harmony, though there’s something almost illusory about the way this aspect manifests in ‘Set 1’. Sverrisson’s slow-moving basslines often give the impression of actual or implied chord progressions, which sometimes (but not always) are confirmed by higher register material. There’s even a sense, as the piece progresses, that it’s part of a complex passacaglia – with a bassline that’s occasionally audible – cycling around the same harmonic space.

The divergence is most apparent around halfway through, when the music almost becomes akin to a strange two-part invention, though it’s important to stress that there’s always an apparent sympathy between the players. We might call it ‘individuated agreement’, not exactly following each other the whole time yet not going their own way either. Repeatedly they return to plateaux where everything is stable and united, respites from the heightened sequences in between when Gísladóttir’s double bass obsesses over squally, argent filigree while Sverrisson’s bass shapes large growling swells that threaten to consume everything. Some of the most mesmerising passages fall between these poles of pressure and release when the duo are at their most vague, at one point reducing to something like indistinct distorted bells which materialise and vanish as if by magic.

The other new release is also a live performance, of Gísladóttir’s large-scale work VÍDDIR recorded at this year’s Dark Music Days festival in March. (As a personal aside, i’m especially pleased that this has been released as, while i attended most of this year’s festival, due to a several-day hiatus before the closing concerts i wasn’t able to stay for this performance.) VÍDDIR is a grand, hour-long exploration of Gísladóttir’s musical thinking. Again featuring herself and Skúli Sverrisson at its core, together with nine flautists and three percussionists (who also play chamber organ), the work is intended to be performed in spaces with “unique acoustics” (though not explicitly stated, the implication is that they should be large and reverberant). The importance of this is stressed by Gísladóttir’s description of the space being “the fifteenth performer of the piece”. Originally conceived for and premièred in the wondrous interior of Copenhagen’s Grundtvigs Kirke, in this recording it was performed in Reykjavík’s similarly majestic Hallgrímskirkja.

The title of the piece translates as ‘dimensions’, and one interpretation of this is to regard the three groups – flutes, basses, percussion – as occupying separate timbral / behavioural dimensions. (The flutes reinforce the fourth dimension, the performance space, by being physically placed to surround the audience). Throughout the work’s duration these different dimensions are combined in different ways, though it’s only toward the end that VÍDDIR becomes truly three- (or four-)dimensional. In some respects its character bears similarities to the Live from the Spirit Store performances, in the sense that there is also here a tilting between forms of vagueness and clarity, pressure and release, pitch and noise, though the tilting isn’t a simple oscillation but follows an altogether less predictable, more intuitive narrative. Moreover, VÍDDIR embraces extremes, operating on a continuum extending to both unrestrained wildness and almost inaudible calm.

Both of these extremes are heard in the first few minutes, the flutes moving from drones through notes coloured by both singing and screaming to whistle tones and, in conjunction with the percussion (playing unfocused, partially-stopped organ notes), a gorgeously rich place of harmonic stasis. On the two occasions when VÍDDIR switches attention to the basses, they’re entirely unnotated, Gísladóttir and Sverrisson improvising for periods of 7 and 13 minutes. The first of these clarifies the fact that the piece has veered registrally from high to low – another polar extreme – but it also enters into a much more nebulous soundworld, the duo (in a strikingly similar way to Live from the Spirit Store) gently flexing around a point where growls and abrasion sit in close proximity to purity and rest. The second of these sequences expands beyond low registers to move seamlessly between periods of drone and more half illusions of possible harmonic continuity, allowing the music to expand hugely but only briefly. It’s one of a number of passages in the piece that beg the question as to whether this is a strong or a fragile music. The easy answer would be to say it’s both, though i wonder whether it’s actually neither, instead exhibiting an entirely different kind of existence that sidesteps or renders moot such simplistic classifications.

The lengthy middle section, focusing on the percussion, brings to mind Takemitsu’s percussion-centred From Me Flows What You Call Time, specifically the similarly drifting repose passages that fall in between its series of climaxes. Here, it ultimately acts as a relaxed counterweight to the clatter with which the section began, almost like listening to tiny motes of vestigial sound in the aftermath of an explosion. This culminates in another of VÍDDIR‘s extreme moments, an ever-growing multiple tam-tam tremolando that engulfs absolutely everything.

Unexpectedly, the path to multi-dimensional unity begins with a solo instrument: the first bass flute (played by Björg Brjánsdóttir) explores a cadenza – much of which sounds nothing like a bass flute – that pushes both the instrument and the performer to a point that, if taken literally, would surely destroy them. Perhaps acting as a focal point for the shifting, at times desperate, tensions that preceded it, the cadenza provokes a cathartic response, as the remaining flutes, the percussion and, eventually, the basses combine together in a gorgeous half floating music that demonstrates how all three elements, despite appearances, and without sacrificing their basic dimensional characteristics, can become complementary. It’s more complex than that, and a savage metallic crash makes one wonder whether it’s a force of opposition or merely a final fling of sympathetic exuberance; the latter seems more likely judging by the delicate whistles and beautiful triadic hints that colour the work’s closing moments.

Works of this kind can tend to take on a ritualistic quality, suggesting prescriptive actions to achieve predetermined (though perhaps unspecified) ends. Yet VÍDDIR never goes anywhere as certain as that, instead opting to move through its otherwise well-defined dimensions according to an altogether less clear but more intuitively expressive trajectory. In the same way that it defies simple classifications of ‘strong’ or ‘fragile’, its emotional language is similarly elusive: screams feed into sounds that could be read as rapturous; softness occurs in the midst of disquiet. The only thing certain about any of it is its inherent uncertainty – and the fact that it’s hands down one of the most unique, special, haunting and above all stunning pieces of music i’ve heard all year.

Released late last month, Live from the Spirit Store is a digital-only release available from the Louth Contemporary Music Society’s Bandcamp site. VÍDDIR, also digital-only, is released today by DaCapo Records.

Infosys co-founder SD Shibulal’s family office is starting a new philanthropic initiative called Sangamam to revive art and culture. Born out of Shibulal’s personal interest in classical Carnatic music, Sangamam intends to create an ecosystem for music artists and lovers. 

“I believe that music has the ability to bring people together and create a common platform. Indian art and music are also cultural heritage that needs to be preserved. The initiative will conduct a bunch of events that will evangelize foundation activities as well as make it enjoyable for the audience,” Shibulal told businessline. 

The Sangamam series will bring live performances to Bengaluru, sharing the classical arts with a broad audience. At present, Sangamam concerts are planned two times every year. The Shibulal Family Philanthropic Initiatives (SFPI) intends to bring on stage artists such as Sudha Ragunathan, T Krishna and Aruna Sairam for the series. The first concert will take place on November 5 at Jyoti Nivas College Auditorium, Bengaluru, featuring Ranjini-Gayatri sisters.

Focus on education

Started in 1999, The Shibulal Family Philanthropic Initiatives (SFPI) runs various initiatives in the field of education, healthcare, social welfare, and organic farming, among others. However, the majority of their initiatives are in the education sector, including its flagship Vidyadhan scholarship programme, a residential scholarship for school students called Ankur, and Vidya Kreeda, scholarship for the higher education of talented sports players, among others.

Speaking about the family’s focus on education, Kumari Shibulal, co-founder & chairperson of SFPI, said the focus on facilitating education is inspired by the couple’s personal journey. “Both our parents were not much educated, but they understood the importance of it and provided us with education. We believe we are here now because of the education we have received,” said Kumari.

Along with the launch of Sangamam, SFPI is also working on increasing the scale of its programmes by collaborating with corporates and other philanthropists willing to sponsor education costs for adult children. Under the Vidyadhan scholarship program, which is aimed at supporting the college education of meritorious students from economically challenged families, SFPI will provide scholarships to 1600 students this year. In the next four to five years, SFPI wants to increase this to 5000 scholarships every year.

“Vidyadhan funds 80 per cent of the student’s education cost and provides mentorship for about five to six years. It has been a phenomenally successful program. We have 5000 children in the program and over 2500 children have already come out of the program and have become engineers, doctors, etc,” said Shibulal. In almost two decades of this scholarship program, some of these scholarship recipients have also come back to sponsor students in the more recent batches.

This week’s peek into Baltimore’s art scene gets spooky, then inspirational and, finally, goes behind the scenes of a theater getting a new look.

First stop on the Backstage Express is in the Meyerhoff Symphony Hall where the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra provides the spookiness as they perform the score for the 2017 film “Get Out.”

Next, learn about the Lemonade Selfie Museum which provides the perfect exhibits for Instagrammable photos.

Finally, get your hard hat ready as we go behind the scenes of the renovations at the Gordon Center for the Performing Arts.

The Baltimore Symphony Orchestra (BSO) is embracing Halloween’s spooky season in a screening of Jordan Peale’s “Get Out,” featuring a live performance of the film’s score.

“It’s a unique opportunity to put the movie with the orchestra,” said Jonathan Rush, who is conducting the performance. “The orchestra is known for playing music that has its own emotions, but now you get to put that experience with the experience of a movie, and I think that it heightens the experience.”

As a BSO associate conductor and artistic director of the organization’s youth orchestra, Rush is no stranger to the task of studying scores and leading large groups, but his first time conducting “Movie with the Orchestra,” presented unique challenges.

“If someone gets whacked in the head, I have to make sure there’s a nice big boom with it. So it takes a lot of time looking at the score … and making sure we also keep up with the film,” he said.

Prep for Rush included watching what are called “studio videos” with no audio.

“I have these flashes on my screen that let me know exactly where my beat needs to be, but also let me know what measure I’m in related to the music,” he explained.

The 27-year-old conductor also said when performing with films there’s less musical liberty, such as slowing down or speeding up certain areas of the score.

“The timing has to be strict, because everything is recorded,” Rush said. “It has to be precise and accurate.”

After having performed during films such as “Star Wars” and “Harry Potter,” Rush said, “Get Out,” exposes new audiences to classical music.

“You get a different experience, with movies you wouldn’t necessarily expect to have music published or written for orchestras and here we are showing that, yes, it does exist.”

In addition to a good time enjoying the orchestra and the thriller, Rush hopes “Get Out” with the BSO orchestra will show that the organization goes beyond performing typical classical works.

“After this performance I want people to be spooked, I want them to be fulfilled, but then I want them to be curious about what the BSO can do next or what the BSO is going to do next,” he said.

The Lemonade Selfie Museum on Franklin Street in Baltimore provides a space for networking, celebrating good memories and promoting positivity and self-empowerment, a welcome development after the isolation required during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic.

“[It] is essentially the museum of affirmations,” said director Alecia Brown. “Affirmations, for me as a mom and a woman, became a thing of reassuring the love for myself, outside of the love I have for the people around me. And so the museum is just a reminder for everyone [to] always love yourself first.”

The museum’s title takes a page from Beyoncé’s critically acclaimed sixth studio album, “Lemonade,” which in 2016 blessed the airwaves.

Featuring exhibits targeting all ages, Lemonade Selfie Museum guests are reminded of their dreams, their power and how far they’ve come.

There’s a room with caps and gowns and written on the wall is “Mama I made it. Another room contains an adult-friendly seesaw and features Hip Hop legend Notorious B.I.G’s lyrics “It was all a dream.” A pink staircase shows rapper Cardi B’s lyrics, “I climb to the top floor.” Guests are encouraged to get their inspiration and cute Instagram photos, by engaging with each exhibit and one another, while exploring their self expression.

“This is really creativity at its finest and through a lens that you can remember via your phone,” Brown said, adding that guests can also rent “old-style” Polaroid cameras. “Our museum is about creating memories, but memories of what your affirmations are. We even have an affirmation wall where people can write their affirmations, and it stays on there, as people come in and out of the museum.”

Other fun activations include a ‘90s nostalgia room with Game Boys and other old electronics, a studio set up so people can take photos as if they are recording songs and a “Checkers not Chess” theme.

The museum’s team intentionally left a few spaces blank, hoping to do more community partnerships with places such as Maryland Institute College of Art (MICA) and local high schools.

“We want people to be able to show their own displays … and honor the artists we have inside of Maryland,” Brown said.

Founded in 1854, the Jewish Community Center (JCC) of Greater Baltimore, the oldest JCC in the country, continues to change as it follows the needs of the community it serves. The Peggy and Yale Gordon Center for the Performing Arts, founded in 1995 on the campus of the Rosenbloom Owings Mills JCC, also shifted, transforming from a classical music venue targeting Baltimore’s Jewish high society, to a creative gathering spot for the community at large.

The Gordon Center underwent seven-figures worth of renovations to adapt to the needs of their multipurpose space — fixing the rigging, sound and lighting. The center’s major renovations are concluding with the lobby.

“The lobby is a meeting space for lots of people of very different ethnic backgrounds, and we are very proud that the Gordon Center is representative of the entire community and county — both in the selection and curation of the shows that we have … and in the ticket purchasers,” said Sara Shalva, JCC chief arts officer.

“The reality is when you go to a theater or a live music experience you’re in a dark room. It’s not a party. The party is when you go out in the lobby,” Shalva said, where there’s discussion and vibrancy and connection.

Peter Michaelson, the center’s senior director and general manager, said the renovation has moved the center “away from the ‘90s” and better fits what the lobby has become: a gathering space, rented out by groups and organizations.

There’s new paint, carpet and lighting, and more open space. The underused, oversized coat room will become a concession area with a bar and cabinets. The new video wall is the “capstone piece” of the lobby renovations, Sharva said, explaining that it will serve many purposes from livestreaming to presentation spaces for business meetings.

Along with the renovated interior, the center is also rolling out a new ticketing platform and website.

The Gordon Center hopes to welcome back patrons in the lobby and 550-seat theater in early 2023 if not sooner. To maintain their season plans and continue programming during renovations, the center will use other resources and spaces, including its 2,000 seat outdoor lot with a giant screen.

Read more Arts Access stories.

The acclaimed new movie Tár is stirring up controversy with its portrayal of Lydia Tár, a fictional female conductor. Tár, played by Cate Blanchett, is predatory, controlling and abuses her power throughout the movie.

Blanchett’s Tár is make-believe, but the film has reignited an all too realistic conversation about the lack of female conductors in orchestras and opera companies.

In the U.S., the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra’s Nathalie Stutzmann is the only female music director at a major orchestra. Both the Dallas and Fort Worth symphony orchestras have never been led by female music directors, though the DSO has hired several female assistant conductors over the past few decades, and appointed Gemma New as principal guest conductor in 2018. The FWSO has also brought in more female guest conductors in recent seasons. Classical music groups across the country have also been programming more female composers, but they are still underrepresented.

The DSO’s fourth annual Women in Classical Music Symposium will address the lingering gender gaps — and speak to the challenges facing women moving toward leadership roles in classical music. From Nov. 6-9, the symposium will include panels and workshops to help attendees navigate barriers in the field.

Historically, major groups have also struggled to hire and retain women of color. This week, Fort Worth Opera’s general and artistic director Afton Battle — one of the first Black women to ever lead a U.S. opera company — resigned amid tensions with her role.

Sarah Whitling, the DSO’s director of institutional giving, said that over the last two years more women who are midcareer are leaving classical music.

“This is a really time-intensive industry that we’re in and there’s not a lot of support” for those who are midcareer heading toward leadership positions, she said. “So a lot of the discussion this year will focus on kind of, OK, you’re at the middle of your career. What comes next?”

In addition, Whitling said this year’s symposium aims to spark broader conversations about the structural barriers faced by women in classical music.

“It’s a pretty patriarchal industry. So then how do we break down some of those cultural things that make it harder for women to advance?” Whitling said. “So it’s not necessarily just what can women do, but what can the industry do as well.”

Around 300 people are expected to attend the event, including students from South Dallas, SMU and Plano ISD who have been invited to participate in some of the panels.

Participants can attend networking events and discussions on topics like the challenges of balancing work and personal life and the experiences of Black women in U.S. orchestras. The symposium will also feature a documentary viewing and discussion about Zohra, Afghanistan’s all-women orchestra that was evacuated from the country when the Taliban retook control.

The DSO isn’t the only group in town boosting the visibility of women in classical music. Since 2015, the Dallas Opera’s Hart Institute has advanced the careers of female conductors, offering workshops and performance opportunities. Alumnae have gone on to conduct at prominent orchestras and opera companies around the globe.

A Nov. 8 symposium panel called “The Burden of Breaking Through: Power Structures and Paths to Progress” will be moderated by Elizabeth Myong, a reporter and producer for Arts Access — a new partnership between The Dallas Morning News and KERA. Vocalist Katherine Goforth, conductor Sarah Ioannides and DSO composer-in-residence Angélica Negrón will discuss how they’ve overcome barriers in classical music and the way biases and power dynamics contribute to the challenges they face.

The symposium will also feature a series of concerts, including a full-orchestra program of all women composers, a chamber music concert curated by Negrón and a song recital by Katherine Goforth, with pianist Anastasia Markina.

Details

“The Burden of Breaking Through: Power Structures and Paths to Progress” panel will be on Tuesday, Nov. 8 from 1:45 to 3:15 p.m. at the Meyerson Symphony Center. Attendance is free and open to the public. Click here to register.

Arts Access is a partnership between The Dallas Morning News and KERA that expands local arts, music and culture coverage through the lens of access and equity.

This community-funded journalism initiative is funded by the Better Together Fund, Carol & Don Glendenning, City of Dallas OAC, Communities Foundation of Texas, The Dallas Foundation, Eugene McDermott Foundation, James & Gayle Halperin Foundation, Jennifer & Peter Altabef and The Meadows Foundation. The News and KERA retain full editorial control of Arts Access’ journalism.

Last fall, local composer Emma Kent Wine put pen to paper to begin her next creation, but before there was music, there was an enchanting children’s story. 

She dreamed up an adventure through time, writing of an inquisitive young girl named Maria who jumps back to the Baroque era to meet Venetian virtuoso Antonio Vivaldi with a little help from a musical magician.  

“Maria’s Magical Music Adventure,” commissioned by Ars Lyrica Houston, is now available for purchase in both English and Spanish, and on the afternoon of Nov. 2, the early music ensemble will celebrate its official launch by hosting a fundraiser luncheon at Tony’s, an iconic Italian eatery in Upper Kirby. While guests savor a gourmet meal, Wine will deliver a reading of the delightful tale, which will be accompanied by a live string quartet and followed by a book signing. 

Underwritten by Connie Kwan-Wong and CKW Luxe Magazine, the event will benefit Ars Lyrica’s educational outreach initiatives, namely a series of collaborations involving bilingual presentations of the children’s book, featuring translator Verónica Romero, with Children’s Museum Houston, Rothko Chapel, Express Children’s Theatre, Discovery Green, Miller Outdoor Theatre, Harris County public libraries and more. 

“I wanted to inspire kids and adults to think about how history is created and experienced both in the moment and then hundreds of years later,” said Wine, who, as Ars Lyrica’s operations and outreach manager, is eager to share her enthusiasm for classical music and hopefully spark people’s imaginations in the process. 

Although she never envisioned herself an author, Wine relished in the opportunity to turn back the clock and consider what might have captivated her younger self. First compiling her thoughts into an essay hundreds of words long, she tightened the narrative to be digestible for children before turning her attention to the music. For the accompaniment, she composed a few original musical interjections and arranged excerpts, notably the recognizable theme of spring, from Vivaldi’s “The Four Seasons.” 

“The book has a little bit of everything,” she said. “It has adventure. It has music. It encourages thinking about emotions, history and social studies. It also is very Houston centric.”  

Guided by a magician named Matthew – in honor of artistic director Matthew Dirst, who founded Ars Lyrica in 1998 – Maria journeys to 18th-century Venice, where the twinkling waterways reflect the star-studded sky. Houston is her home, however, and references to the Bayou City are sprinkled throughout the text as well as in dazzling drawings by Ekaterina Ilchenko, an illustrator based in Europe. Whimsical scenes featuring Texas wildflowers are interspersed with those of an Italian court, where partygoers are dressed in clothing based on authentic Baroque fashion. 

Not only does this concept of time travel align with Ars Lyrica’s mission of crafting experiences around ‘ music from the Baroque era performed on period instruments, but the children’s book has also furthered the organization’s impact in making early music fun and accessible for audiences of all ages. The project – the idea for which came at the suggestion of board member Kwan-Wong, a local magazine publisher and philanthropist – quickly grew into a multidisciplinary endeavor that continues to expand the ensemble’s community programming and collaborative partnerships. 

In addition to being showcased in an episode of Ars Lyrica’s virtual “Musical Storytime” series, “Maria’s Magical Music Adventure” may be experienced live, accompanied by a string quartet or a solo musician, through family-friendly reading events across the city, one of which will take place during the Menil Collection’s Neighborhood Community Day in April. By spring, the tale will also be brought to life onstage in a world-premiere play, directed by Tim Fried-Fiori and co-produced with Express Children’s Theatre. 

“This project checks a lot of boxes for us. It’s an empowering, lovely story for kids, and it’s a continuation of our efforts that we started even before the pandemic,” said Ars Lyrica’s executive director Kinga Ferguson, speaking of the group’s commitment to enhancing social-emotional learning. 

“Houston is a cosmopolitan city, and we need to represent, promote and offer programs that focus on different cultures, languages and ethnicities,” she continued. “We’re sponsoring this project to better the lives of Houstonians, and that’s what we are all working towards.”

Lawrence Elizabeth Knox is a Houston-based writer.