Posts by Christopher Nimmo
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For clarity - Jan Farr, page 9:
Because it doesn't come in little sound bites. Concerts take time and concentration. Concerts are about serious music - not necessarily European classical music - Indonesian gamelan and Hirini Melbourne and Richard Nunns recreation of early Maori music, for instance. Music with something to say. You certainly don't want to be dragged out of it at the end of every movement and told which firm to buy your mobile phone from.
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Who said that?
Well, I approvingly quoted Jan Farr as saying that CONCERT music is serious, rather than 'classical' music.
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I've definitely heard one of the Godspeed You! follow-ups on Concert.
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And I guess there's a case to be made for pop-culture productions like Outrageous Fortune
Ah! Here you must be referring to Gillian Whitehead's opera about the Otago gold rush, right? I don't think that was central government funded though.
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"If we lose the Concert programme, where are we going hear our lovely Kiri?".
Because 'left-wing intellectuals' think she's a bit of a prat?
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Sadly, I can't see how any opera company in New Zealand is going to make the budget work on a fully-staged contemporary opera (see below), let alone commission one that is quote unquote "relevant":
This is what the NZFotA should be doing, and did a pretty good job of last time around with Matthew Suttor's The Trial of the Cannibal Dog (which saw Deborah Wai Kapohe in pretty stunning form). And that got pretty substantial audiences.
NZ Opera could perhaps afford to test the waters in a couple of years with a Wozzeck or an imported Adams production. There's no reason why a contemporary opera necessarily has to be a wildly expensive affair to produce in any case - it doesn't carry all the same expectations as historical opera.
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Who is to say that music 'that makes you think' (or whatever else that statement is meant to mean) is more worthy of a nationwide Government-funded station than music you can shake your hips to?
Does commercial control of the distribution of dance music affect people's ability to dance to the music? And does commercial control of the distribution of 'thinking' music affect people's ability to express ideas through music? And is this a bad thing? Shostakovich's relationship with the Soviet leadership was mentioned above. That was government control that prevented the expression of ideas, because the government feared the power of music. But this is a democracy. Surely a democratic government should value the expression of ideas? If commercial interference in the Concert Programme were to reduce the airtime given to new music, this would inhibit expression.
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Anyone wonder why lefty intellectuals get stereotyped as elitist?
Is it something to do with wanting the best for everybody?
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Yes, I distinctly remember the substances vs universals debate in Debussy.
I would suggest that Debussy would be the wrong composer to consult. The development of um... development, and in particular the relationship between symphonic development and its contemporary manifestations might provide better insights.
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What is so special about concert music?
Jan Farr said above that concert music is serious music. It's true. Western 'classical' music traces the entire history of Western philosophical thought. It is an aural history, and that history is incredibly important to society. I'm certain the same is true of the musical-philosophical traditions of other cultures; it's certainly important that these are reflected in the Concert Programme, but it's also significant that contemporary 'classical' music in New Zealand is strongly reflective of multiculturalism - Gillian Whitehead, Jack Body, John Psathas, Gao Ping and so on; Alfred Hill aeons ago - there's very little that is untouched by our place in the world. More than Midnight Youth or whatever they're called? I'd say so. More than Shihad? I'd say so. More than Smashproof? Lyrically? No. Musically? Hmmm.