For music, it was the worst of years…
OrchestrasFrom my 2025 year-end essay in The Critic, out today:
There is no way to pretend that 2025 was a good year for music. It was tough out there, with two ugly wars being fought in a moral vacuum and Russian agents breaching false walls of Western solidarity. Only New York’s Metropolitan Opera held firm against Putin’s artists.
Other institutions crumbled like sawdust. Washington’s Kennedy Center, the nation’s performing arts temple, was taken over by Donald Trump in a boardroom raid. Ticket sales have since fallen by half. Donors have deserted….
Continues here.
And gets worse.
LOL Kennedy center is not America’s “performing arts temple!”
But yeah the DEI woke garbage and nonstop cheerleading for minority /female musicians of questionable value has led the fine arts down this road.
Ok, you want a full separation between the Israeli government and Israeli musicians? Totally agree.
But when you then talk about “Putin’s artists” it makes no sense anymore. Like, absolutely no sence.
Well, since 2022 we have only two and a half so-called “Putin artists” and they didn’t make it further than Russia or China. All others are either silent or don’t perform in Russia. And the latter suffers the most cause they are still Russians with Russian passports but the world avoids them just to be sure that no one will burn down the hall with a Russian pianist playing in it
When the music world took up the so called western value and embranced the double standard, it will become irrevalent, just liket the Olympics did, and they are having trouble finding a host for the 2036 games.
Great piece! Among many excellent observations, it correctly infers that the Chicago Symphony Orchestra “got panicked”.
Given what can be judged as an utterly disastrous Muti era, a diminished orchestra, and ever-declining ticket sales, who can blame them for panicking? They may pay a heavy price with their new MD, but it’s not like they have not paid a heavier price already. This season, we had to wait for the coming of Maestro Honeck from Pittsburgh, to finally hear good music at SH (in spite of the orchestra’s all too evident limitations) and stop our distressed wailing…