The cancellation of classical music
I am rather glad I have got all my favorite stuff on recordings
Until August 2020, Dona Vaughn had been the longtime artistic director of opera at the Manhattan School of Music. Her experience included singing, acting and directing on and off Broadway and on opera stages. The Manhattan School of Music’s 2019 production of Saverio Mercadante’s little-known opera buffa, I due Figaro, showed her influence in stunningly charismatic and witty student performances.
Vaughn was committed to championing minority musicians – so much so that she endowed a scholarship for them at her alma mater, Brevard College in North Carolina. ‘In all my years of teaching’, she said at the time, ‘I often have wished that more minority members were encouraged to pursue a music profession’. Besides the classics, she produced socially conscious contemporary works, giving the first professional staging, for example, at the Fort Worth Opera Festival of a feminist opera about a 17th-century nun.
The mob cares nothing for facts, though. On 17 June 2020, Vaughn was teaching a class via Zoom on musical theatre. An unidentified participant, whose name and image were blacked out, asked her, out of the blue, how she could justify having produced Franz Lehár’s allegedly racist operetta, Das Land des Lächelns (The Land of Smiles), several years earlier. (The racial sin, in this case, was allegedly against Asians.) Vaughn cut the questioner off for raising an issue irrelevant to the current discussion.
The fuse was lit. A Manhattan School of Music student petition was immediately forthcoming. Vaughn must be fired because she is a ‘danger to the arts community’, it thundered. The petition resurrected a meme from the time of the Lehár production: that Vaughn had cast a black singer as a butler, thus supposedly proving her racism. For good measure, the petition threw in unspecified ‘reports’ of ‘homophobic aggression and body shaming’. The petition quickly garnered 1,800 signatures. Phoney Instagram accounts under Vaughn’s name suddenly appeared on the web, containing fake inflammatory material
Vaughn’s colleagues, cowering from the mob, let her twist in the wind. Almost none came to her defence. Vaughn was fired and replaced by a black male.
The Manhattan School of Music administration apparently made no effort to speak with Vaughn’s former students, who would have rebutted the false charges against her. Howard Watkins is a black assistant conductor at the Metropolitan Opera and a faculty member at Juilliard; he has accompanied world-famous singers and conducted at some of the most prestigious venues in the industry. In a heartfelt character reference after she had been fired, he chronicled his history with Vaughn. In 1988, he was enrolled in the Lindemann Young Artist Development Programme at the Metropolitan Opera. Vaughn was the programme’s stage director and acting coach. Watkins wrote that Vaughn was responsible for many of his greatest experiences there. ‘Her classes provided all of us with specific tools towards improving our artistic growth and understanding… It is tremendously sad that the students of Manhattan School have been deprived of the opportunity of learning from someone with vast knowledge, the passionate desire to see them succeed and the integrity to say what must be said for them to grow.’
Bass-baritone LaMarcus Miller – also black – worked in Vaughn’s Opera Workshop and Opera Lab at the Manhattan School of Music in the early 2010s. She was a ‘pillar of integrity’ and the ‘epitome of a mentor’, he said. ‘I’ve only seen her be tremendously inclusive, while holding students accountable for their actions.’
Days after the firing, the anonymous petition instigator posted a follow-up:
‘Victory! Dona D Vaughn has been removed from her position at MSM. Thank you to everyone who supported this petition. The work is never over and I hope you all feel strengthened by this victory.’
The ‘hope’ is well-founded; on to the next takedown. As for Vaughn, she was in shock. ‘I do not have words to describe it. It’s guilt by allegation’, she said at the time.
Musicology in the dock
In recent years, another academic has also been fighting back against a similarly false allegation of racism. Timothy Jackson is a music theory professor at the University of North Texas. He specialises in the work of 20th-century Austrian music theorist Heinrich Schenker, who developed an influential system of analysis that identifies the most important elements of a musical phrase in order to explain the phrase’s emotional impact and its role within a work’s thematic development. Jackson is also the former head of the Centre for Schenkerian Studies and the former editor of the Journal of Schenkerian Studies.
In November 2019, Hunter College musicologist Philip Ewell gave a keynote address at the annual meeting of the Society for Music Theory, titled ‘Music Theory’s White Racial Frame’. Ewell argued that Schenker’s ranking of notes and harmonies within a composition is merely a stand-in for a white supremacist ranking of the races. The ‘white racial frame’ of Schenkerian analysis has kept blacks from becoming music theorists, Ewell maintained.
Jackson responded by putting out a call to members of the Society for Music Theory (including to Ewell) to contribute to a symposium in the Journal of Schenkerian Studies. The majority of the essays, published in July 2020, were critical, although some were supportive. But few stated the obvious: that to equate Schenker’s ranking of notes and harmonies with racial hierarchies is lunacy.
https://www.spiked-online.com/2023/05/20/the-cancellation-of-classical-music/
**********************************************UK: Plot to drive out equality chief who's standing up for women: Whistleblowers at human rights commission say boss is facing 'witch hunt' from trans lobby
Staff at the equalities watchdog were tonight accused of trying to oust their chairman over her stance on trans issues.
Whistleblowers say Kishwer Falkner is the victim of a 'witch-hunt' driven by ideology.
Relations are said to have soured after she backed legal reforms guarding the rights of biological women in single-sex spaces such as hospital wards and toilets.
The employees at the Equality and Human Rights Commission are said to have compiled a dossier, setting out more than 40 complaints aimed at Baroness Falkner by a dozen current and former colleagues. A source said: 'People within the organisation are deeply concerned that this is a witch-hunt.
'The timing is extremely questionable. There is no doubt in my mind that this is ideologically motivated and is a way to take a scalp in revenge.
'She is the woman breaking woke and now they are trying to break her.'
Baroness Falkner is said to have been left 'heartbroken' by the allegations but those close to her said her 'conscience was clear'. They branded the move by EHRC staff a 'failed coup d'etat'.
Among the accusations facing Baroness Falkner is that she referred to a trans quiz show contestant as a 'bloke in lipstick' during a meeting.
However, a source last night insisted the comment had been taken out of context and that Baroness Falkner had simply been highlighting the level of abuse directed at trans women online.
Members of the commission's board, which is headed by Baroness Falkner, have called for an overhaul of the 2010 Equality Act, which refers to gender and sex interchangeably.
They argue it should be amended to explicitly define sex as 'biological sex' to bring legal clarity in areas including sport and ensure only 'biological women' can use single-sex spaces.
The whistleblower said: 'The EHRC exists to regulate the application of all rights, but sometimes rights compete and you have to balance them.
'But we see time and time again that there is a huge price to pay for the people who do speak up for women's rights and they are cancelled.'
The move has seen the baroness and the rest of the commission's oversight board vilified by trans activists online.
There have also been leaks to Left-leaning media outlets branding her a 'wolf in sheep's clothing' and 'transphobic'.
Staff from the executive team were said to having been pushing to allow for gender self-identification, allowing trans people to state their chosen gender without any medical diagnosis.
A second source said: 'The executive just refused to accept the board's decision. There were strenuous efforts to reject it and it was around this time allegations were starting to be made.
'There is a very progressive, activist-inclined staff who are influenced by organisations and groups like Stonewall.'
The source said senior executives had grown accustomed to calling the shots at the commission but this changed when Baroness Falkner took over to provide 'real leadership'.
They said the complaints felt like a move to 'get her', adding: 'This process of finding fault with Kishwer is clearly political.' The dossier is said to have made claims of discrimination, including transphobia, bullying and harassment.
There was also an allegation that the baroness employed 'discriminatory language' by using the words 'a bloke in lipstick' when discussing the online trolling of a trans quiz contestant who appeared on BBC Radio 4's Brain of Britain.
However a source said the comment had been taken out of context and she had simply been highlighting the level of abuse directed at trans women online.
Quango promotes 'fairness for all'
A quango set up by New Labour, the Equality and Human Rights Commission opened its doors in 2007. It was designed to provide 'fairness for all', providing a single discrimination watchdog to replace existing bodies that focused on race, disability and equal opportunities.
Founding chairman Trevor Phillips was dogged by complaints about his 'divisive leadership', which was said to have led to six commissioners quitting. And lawyer and former Stonewall chairman David Isaac, who was chairman of the EHRC from 2016, faced conflict of interest claims because his law firm Pinsent Masons carried out 'significant work for the Government'.
His successor Baroness Falkner was a Lib Dem peer for 15 years – yet has been accused of backing Conservative ministers in the trans debate. Early in her tenure she declared that women must have the right to question gender ideology.
Both sources the Mail has spoken to say the complainants failed to raise the issues via the correct channels at the time, instead choosing to compile the dossier, which has led to a costly independent KC-led investigation.
'All sort of errors have occurred. The board was never consulted when some complaints were eventually made,' one said.
'The whole thing was escalated and lots of external bodies have been brought in and we've ended up with this KC.
'The whole thing has mushroomed at enormous cost.'
The allegations against Baroness Falkner have been leaked to Channel 4 News, which is believed to be planning to run a report on the issue this week – something the sources say could 'jeopardise' the investigation.
The news programme, which has been accused of Left-wing bias in the past, is thought to have interviewed as many as 20 people.
The Channel 4 News special is expected to suggest staff fear the EHRC is no longer independent and has colluded with the Government to undermine trans rights.
Baroness Falkner last night refused to comment, citing the ongoing investigation.
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America’s giving a big thumbs-down to the injustice of trans athletes - because finally, we’re not too scared to call it out for the madness it really is
The backlash is building. Women and girls are beginning to publicly agitate, to speak the unspeakable, to quit fearing the woke mob and say: ENOUGH.
Enough with trans athletes stealing hard-won victories and scholarships.
Enough with biological females reduced to ornaments on podiums, meant to happily stand alongside biological males who have unfairly won.
Enough with being forced to share once-safe spaces, be they locker rooms or sorority houses.
Enough with corporations turning womanhood into insulting pantomime, frippery, one big joke.
Enough.
We women need the iconography of defiance, because governing bodies — be they in sport, medicine, school boards or C-suites — aren’t listening. Yet.
But they will. After all, how much longer can they ignore the accretion of protests, anger and frustration that is starting to override the fear of being labeled a transphobe or a bigot or of being cancelled?
As the wise Kris Kristofferson once wrote, ‘Freedom’s just another word for nothing left to lose.’
Women and girls are realizing this. We really do have nothing left to lose, because so much has already been taken from us.
More iconography: The trans cyclist standing alone on the podium after beating two biological females in a 100-mile desert gravel race.
‘I have no idea why so many people bailed before the podiums,’ said Lesley Mumford, who transitioned in 2017 and raced in the all-female category. ‘But they did.’
The only thing more infuriating than biological males competing against females is their false wonderment upon wiping the floor with them: What could possibly be wrong? What could these women be so upset about? Why are they overreacting?
That latter sentiment, of course, weighted with centuries-old misogyny.
Mumford could have raced in a non-binary category but chose not to, beating the nearest female competitor by 17 minutes and the third-place finisher by half an hour. That's what we call a stolen victory.
Mumford should be ashamed. Instead, all we see is pride.
Inga Thompson, the three-time American Olympic cyclist, recently called for female athletes to take a knee.
Days later, Cynisca Cycling – who claim they are ‘committed to advancing women in the sport’ – announced that Thompson was no longer on its board of directors and had no role whatsoever within the pro team.
Something tells me Cynisca will regret that.
Think, too, of the brave sorority sisters at the University of Wyoming, suing because the national Kappa Kappa Gamma organization allowed a 6ft 2in, 220-pound trans student to join their group and has done nothing while they ‘live in constant fear.’
They claim the Artemis Langford, a biological male, has sat and watched the girls silently for hours, and even had visible erections around the sorority house.
What decent person gets off on making college girls feel unsafe?
‘Our house is our home,’ one sister told journalist Megyn Kelly on her podcast. ‘You go home at the end of the day to feel comfortable and relaxed in your own skin. And you can’t do that knowing that this individual has full access to your house.’
How is this considered a big ask? How is feeling free from threat in your own home not considered a basic human right?
How is it okay that parents aren’t notified that their child identifies as transgender — as, most recently, California ratified in April? Or that two children’s hospitals in Texas are under investigation for providing transition-related medical care, despite a state-wide ban on such practices expected to come into effect in September?
And how is it that corporations such as Adidas and Target haven’t learned from Budweiser’s Dylan Mulvaney disaster? Or Nike’s, for that matter?
Budweiser’s sales have tanked every week since the beginning of April, and despite leaning back into their original branding — see their latest ad complete with a Clydesdale, wheat farms and veterans raising the American flag, hand over heart, none too subtle — the hit may be permanent.
Nike lost $4 billion in the days after the breast-less Mulvaney posted a video ‘working out’ in a women’s sports bra, mincing about as if mocking female sport.
‘Literally a kick in the teeth,’ said retired UK Olympic swimmer Sharron Davies of the Nike-Mulvaney partnership. ‘Women are being treated with total disdain at the moment, particularly in the world of sport where physiology makes so much difference.’
Make no mistake: This is no mere culture war.
This is about the eradication of girls and women, of their financial and professional opportunities, of their rights to compete fairly, of their physical safety.
There is no other cohort on earth, as I’ve said before, that would ever be so dehumanized, let alone expected to sit back and take it happily.
To allow this to continue is to weep for the next generation of girls. We women fought long and hard so they could have every freedom they deserve.
Now is the time to raise a fist, take a knee, add your voice to the protest.
Inga Thompson, Riley Gaines, Martina Navratilova, Sharron Davies, the sorority sisters in Wyoming, the mothers, sisters and daughters who boycott and defy — we’re all are on the right side of history.
The movement is building. The snowball will become an avalanche. Who next among the famous and influential is brave enough to join?
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The supremacy of feelings
We now have various psychological contexts being determined under regulation in Australia. One example is the workplace, which has changed from being a place of respect, to being a fantasy land of feel-goodism.
As reported by Sky News Australia, a new national code of conduct describes mental safety in the workplace as being just as important as physical safety. Of course, we do not want anyone taking advantage of others at work, but the way this regulation is explained puts the responsibility on employers for the mental health of their workers. As often happens, ‘the devil is in the detail’, or in this case, the lack of coherent conceptual thought that makes managing the detail impossible.
Responsibility for others’ ‘mental health’? Really? Then answer me this – what is ‘mental health’, or even more basically, what is the ‘mind’? Whose responsibility is it to monitor how we think? Are emotions simply a matter of the mind? If we believe the mind is simply the outworking of our physical predispositions and capacities that are expressed through past and current social contexts, then we might assume we can plan perfect environments that will make all our people happy – for happiness is the standard of wellbeing these days. And if all factors for happiness and wellbeing can be known through personality tests and social engineering, then we can create near-perfect environments. We already have a good handle on that and we call those places ‘zoos’. Trouble is, people are not just animals.
An additional problem is that happiness and wellbeing are so utterly self-referential in our therapeutic age. What system can be used to decide whose feelings to validate? Oh wait, of course, we already have that. It is called Critical Race Theory, and all we need to do is to label people by race to determine who is oppressed, who are oppressors, and therefore, who to move on if someone or a group claim that is not being validated.
The implied assumption behind this kind of regulation is that if you have authority, because you are responsible for others, then you are the one with greater power. If your people feel offended, uncomfortable, or unhappy, it is always your fault as ‘the boss’. This is because, in our emotion-focused age, the one in authority is always the oppressor, and the worker is the oppressed. As one of my teachers said to me once when I was a school principal, ‘Your job is to keep me stress-free!’ So much for ‘no pain, no gain’, or ‘no challenge, no growth’.
This new requirement is not science-based regulation. It is a mixture of good ideas encased in Romanticists’ false notions of life, wrapped up in a therapeutised understanding of self that denies our world of wonder and pain. It is, at best, a move to help reinforce respect in the workplace. At its worst (which is my best guess), it is another way of destabilising the best of our law and mercy-based tradition while we move into a moral relativism that is impossible personally and socially. It is, put bluntly, an institutionalisation of a version of ‘the self’ that is incoherent, selfish, and clearly morally evasive.
Take this quote from Mental Health and Resilience Expert Graeme Cowan: ‘Every company has an obligation to have a psychologically safe and healthy workplace.’ This assumes companies (and the courts) will know what being psychologically safe means in the face of someone asserting: ‘But they made me uncomfortable so often!’
How will a court or commissioner make judgments about how someone reacted in their internal states to external events? Courts review evidence of fact – physical evidence of people in time and place. But his kind of regulation makes the regulator the arbiter of whose feelings are more valid. Such a situation leads to the weakening of understanding of what ‘proof’ looks like, and paves the way for an emotivist analysis of any conflict situation – one where if anyone can claim victimhood, it is expected that sympathy should automatically be with them.
Then there is this:
‘Psychological safety is where you feel you can be your authentic self, you feel that you can take risks and try new things and know that if it doesn’t work out you don’t get crucified – it’s really feeling connected with those around us, it’s having a sense of belonging.’
Note the language of ‘where you feel’. How can this be regulated? What if you are actually safe, but you feel as if you are not? Who will adjudicate that? A raft of psychologists? Psychiatrists? Lawyers? Magistrates? And who decides what ‘authentic self’ means for anyone at any point of time? The person on their testimony? How might that be checked, let alone supported? What if your ‘authentic self’ is at odds with the hope and goals of the group with which you are associating?
And what of these notions of being ‘connected’ and ‘belonging’? In matters of regulation, this is traditionally linked to checking that actions are not discriminatory according to certain individual characteristics in certain defined contexts. Traditionally, women were safe when they were connected to and belonged to a defined woman’s safe shelter. If a transgender woman was appointed to work in that woman’s shelter, whose feelings would be considered as more important? The women (female adult) workers, or the transgender person?
Or imagine a worker who declares that they are not feeling connected with those around them. Perhaps the reason is that they have low iron in their blood, causing a physical loss of focus and energy, which they interpret as ‘they are not allowing me to be me’. Can the workplace ask them to visit a physician, or would that be considered as being non-affirming of their interpretation of their emotions?
People cannot be reduced to their physical inheritances and capacity, not even in recognition of their social context, past and present. To understand each other, we need deeper, more human interaction. Legal regulation needs to stick to external evidence based on actions and responses. When law plays social-worker, justice becomes sentiment and complainants are assumed to be victims. The accused must therefore be bad, even if not proven. And worst still, the media is allowed to run commentary choosing their preferred narrative, and not chasing the facts of the matter.
But could that really happen? Oh wait, we have an investigation into something like this right now in our Capital – silly me, of course our capital will lead us in this incoherence.
https://www.spectator.com.au/2023/05/the-supremacy-of-feelings/
****************************************My other blogs. Main ones below:
http://dissectleft.blogspot.com (DISSECTING LEFTISM)
http://edwatch.blogspot.com (EDUCATION WATCH)
http://antigreen.blogspot.com (GREENIE WATCH)
http://australian-politics.blogspot.com (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)
http://snorphty.blogspot.com/ (TONGUE-TIED)
http://jonjayray.com/blogall.html More blogs
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Kristina Pimenova, once said to be the most beautiful girl in the world. Note blue eyes and blonde hair
Bliss: What every woman wants: to feel safe and secure in the arms of her man. Robert Irwin and Rorie Buckey. See
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