Classical Composers Have Their Say

don’t delete my captions

Intermezzo ( BTTB International Version )

Composed And Performed By Ryuichi Sakamoto

Singing the Night among the Fishing Boats/Fishermen’s Song at Eventide (Traditional)

They get to play in an orchestra next to world-class musicians. They will have mentors and be mentors for children in the Shelby County Schools system. During their 10-month fellowship, they are paid a stipend and housing is provided at artist friendly Crosstown Concourse.

They also will be active in the Memphis community, playing in an ensemble and taking classical music to people that otherwise would not have the opportunity to hear it in-person.

All of this is part of the IRIS Orchestra’s Artist Fellows program, which is in second year and offers training in teaching artistry, chamber performance, and orchestral playing to string musicians from historically underrepresented populations in classical music.

Rebecca Arendt, who coordinates the Artist Fellows program, says that nationally African-Americans and Latinos make up less 4 percent of professional orchestra musicians.

Bethena : A Concert Waltz (1905)

By Composer Scott Joplin (1868 - 1917)

The English National Opera have recently announced that the role of Otello in their upcoming production of Verdi’s opera of the same name, which is based on Shakespeare’s Othello, will be played by the renowned Australian tenor, Stuart Skelton. Othello is of course Shakespeare’s famous (and in many ways infamous) “black” character. A “Moorish general”, sometimes described in the text as “tawny” but to whom barely a page of Shakespeare’s play goes by without at least some reference to his skin colour.

According to several opera buffs on my Twitter feed and various Facebook conversations, Verdi though was less interested in Otello’s race. If I’m honest my knowledge of opera is scant but nevertheless the “Moorish general”(as described in the dramatis personae) is first referred to by the piece’s villain Iago as “a thick-lipped savage”who offers ”murky kisses” to Desdemona and the briefest of searches on youtube will find Otello imploring Desdemona to give him her “ivory white hand”. A google image search will instantly bring up a legion of opera singers in garish “blackface” make-up. To separate race from Othello or Otello is surely like separating melancholia from Hamlet. Nothing in drama is impossible but some things are more of a stretch than others.

The E.N.O. have promised on their Twitter account that there will be “no blackface in our production”. And yet Stuart Skelton is a ruggedly fair Caucasian.