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      Russian Conductor Will Not Appear With New York Philharmonic

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      Tugan Sokhiev, who resigned from two posts after facing pressure to condemn the invasion of Ukraine, will not perform with the orchestra because of the war.The Russian conductor Tugan Sokhiev, who recently resigned from two high-profile posts after facing pressure to condemn the Russian invasion of Ukraine, will no longer lead a series of concerts with the New York Philharmonic because of the war, the orchestra announced on Friday.Sokhiev, who until this month was the music director of the Bolshoi Theater in Moscow and the Orchestre National du Capitole in Toulouse, France, had been scheduled to appear with the Philharmonic starting on March 31 for three concerts featuring the music of Rachmaninoff and Prokofiev. Instead, the concerts will be led by Anna Rakitina, a rising conductor who was born in Moscow to a Russian mother and Ukrainian father, in her Philharmonic debut.The Philharmonic described the change as a mutual decision, saying in a statement that it was made “out of regard for the current global situation.” The orchestra said Sokhiev would appear next season.In a statement, Sylvie Bouchard, Sokhiev’s manager, said, “The decision with the New York Philharmonic was made mutually and Tugan Sokhiev is looking forward to his future engagements with the orchestra.”The cancellation of Sokhiev’s appearance in New York comes as the Russian invasion continues to rattle the performing arts. In recent weeks some cultural institutions have put pressure on artists to denounce President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia and his attack on Ukraine.Sokhiev had faced demands from French officials earlier this month that he clarify his position on the war before appearing again with his Toulouse orchestra. In response to the demands, he resigned, and announced at the same time that he was also stepping down from the Bolshoi Theater, saying he felt he was being forced to pick between the two ensembles.“I am being asked to choose one cultural tradition over” another, Sokhiev said at the time. “I am being asked to choose one artist over the other.”Deborah Borda, the Philharmonic’s president and chief executive, said in an interview that the orchestra had a “wonderful relationship” with Sokhiev, who led a week of performances in New York in 2018.“We pray for peace,” she said. “We pray for peace for him.”Borda added that the Philharmonic was committed to presenting Russian musicians and works by Russian composers. But she said that the orchestra would not present artists if they had direct ties to Putin or his government.“These are very nuanced decisions,” she said. “One cannot make blanket decisions about this. It’s not black or white.”Rakitina is an assistant conductor at the Boston Symphony Orchestra and a former Dudamel Fellow at the Los Angeles Philharmonic. She will make her debut with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra next week.The program that Sokhiev was set to lead, which features the Chinese pianist Haochen Zhang playing Rachmaninoff’s Second Piano Concerto alongside Lili Boulanger’s “D’un Matin de Printemps” and Prokofiev’s Fifth Symphony, will remain unchanged. More

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      Heather Christian’s Choral Work Is a Study of Time. Patience, Too.

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      The composer’s “Oratorio for Living Things,” forced to shut down because of the pandemic, returns to the Ars Nova stage in Manhattan.On a strangely comforting morning in early March, the composer Heather Christian made her way to Ars Nova’s space in Greenwich Village, Manhattan, for the first time in two years. The bright sun, radiating the warmth of a spring day, was enough to momentarily make her forget she was freezing. Once inside, she re-encountered the set for her delicately epic choral piece “Oratorio for Living Things,” which had two preview performances before the pandemic hit, and is back, running through April 17.“I felt the weight of time,” she said during a recent conversation over Zoom, reflecting on her return to the theater. “It was the weight of expectation or even the grief of the last time I was in that space.”It was only fitting that time felt like Christian’s companion, since “Oratorio for Living Things,” in the words of its creator, is a study of time “in three different scales: the quantum scale, the human scale and the cosmic scale.”To achieve this, she said she tried to find parallels between the ways in which particles move, for example, and the way in which a fugue is structured, or by examining cosmic violence (the Big Bang) and linking it to human trauma.Gerianne Pérez, center, in “Oratorio for Living Things” at Greenwich House Theater in March 2020, shortly before the premiere run shut down.Sara Krulwich/The New York TimesThen, to explain these concepts on an emotional level, she collected hundreds of voice mail messages that she had solicited from strangers, inviting them to share a memory anonymously. (“I left business cards everywhere!” she said with a laugh.) These delicious recollections — of transporting bags of groceries on a sleigh in Moscow, or knowing that someone’s mother “will bring my baby brother with her” when she leaves the hospital — make up the second act.As for the musical composition, performed by an orchestra of six, “Oratorio” layers myriad genres — gospel, jazz, Baroque and a range of pop styles — to create harmony where cacophony might otherwise exist.“The more we sing these songs and say these words,” said Onyie Nwachukwu, one of the 12 singers who bring the piece to life, “the more I’m acutely aware of the almost fantastic nature of humans and everything that’s around us.”The show’s director, Lee Sunday Evans, envisioned the production as if set in a Quaker meeting house “where there’s no pulpit or proscenium and so the music wants to be amongst us.” Performers move throughout the space gently interacting with audience members, almost inviting them to sing along.“I knew I wanted to do a piece about time,” Christian, 40, explained. “Music itself is a study of time, a dissertation on how time moves in a specific way.” She tried dissecting Carl Orff’s cantata “Carmina Burana,” a celebration of earthly passions that she describes as “spaghetti exploding out of the bowl.” It has been a favorite of hers since high school because of its mysteriousness — it asks big questions without offering an answer.A self-described cultural omnivore who finds as much wisdom in “The Golden Girls” as Bach’s compositions, Christian revisited Orff while reading Carlo Rovelli’s “The Order of Time,” about time in physics, and rewatched old episodes of Carl Sagan’s “Cosmos.” Her fascination with how they all explained complex subjects in digestible ways eventually resulted in an eureka moment: She would do the same with a musical piece. And that’s when she started working on “Oratorio.” (The libretto is dedicated to the three Carls.)Christian composes by ear. “Things come to me all at once,” she said. But lacking a consistent practice for transcribing her work, she found a priceless collaborator in the music director Ben Moss, who also performs in “Oratorio.” Moss came in during an early workshop of the piece in 2018 and offered to help with the transcription. At the time, Christian had the skeleton of the work, Moss added the minutiae. He said it felt as if he were “crawling inside of her mind and her musical and poetic imagination.”Using voice notes and memos, Christian conveys her intentions to her collaborators, making them an essential part of the process. “I wish we recorded some of the sessions of her explaining things and her whys and hows because it in and of itself is artistry,” said Nwachukwu, who also appeared in a 2019 workshop of Christian’s “Annie Salem: An American Tale” at Vassar’s Powerhouse Theater. She said she found herself approaching theater from a new perspective: “less restrictive and structured” than what she was accustomed to in opera and more traditional musicals. “What Heather asked of me was to go to a place that was somewhat uncomfortable,” she recalled, “where the first thing I had to do was throw away convention.”From left, Amber Gray, Christian at the piano and Libby King and Brian Hastert embracing in “Mission Drift” at the Connelly Theater in Manhattan.Chang W. Lee/The New York TimesRachel Chavkin, the Tony-winning director of “Hadestown” who oversaw the workshop of “Salem,” described Christian’s music as “somewhere between a creature howling at the moon and the sound of the moon itself.” Her music, she continued, “isn’t about furthering story, each song is a bit more like a spiritual or emotional happening than a story beat.”Chavkin began collaborating with Christian in 2008 when they created a musical called “Mission Drift,” a show about the recession and America’s rapacious brand of capitalism. Every time they work together, Chavkin said, “I can see my own experience with the possibilities of these forms.” She added: “Heather is inventing the wheel for herself.”FOUR DAYS BEFORE theaters in New York shut down, I attended the last dress rehearsal for “Oratorio.” I distinctly remember leaving the theater feeling as if I had witnessed a work that successfully established a dialogue between the sacred and the mundane, between the invisible and what we grasp with our senses. In many ways, it left me open to viewing the pandemic as an opportunity to find wonder and solace in the things we often take for granted.During that forced break in 2020, Christian herself found and made music out of things she’d never tried before. “I was swimming in a sea of first drafts,” she said, laughing, “but I also got chickens and decided to learn how to garden in a serious way.” Spending time with her husband at home in Beacon, N.Y., she also took to self-reflection. “I tried to investigate my relationship to ambition and slow down, especially because all my shows are about exactly those things,” she added.Born in New Orleans, Christian was raised in what she called “avant-garde Catholicism.” At 11, she became a cantor in Natchez, Miss., where her family had moved when she was 3. But soon “the functional magic of religion lost its mysticism,” she explained. She recalled being behind the scenes and a time when she saw “a priest pick a wedgie in the middle of the consecration of the host.” Suddenly, it was all theater, a new kind of sacred space.“I honestly think it’s going to take a little bit of work for me, and for people, to reimagine the performance space as a womb and a safe space,” Christian said.Tony Cenicola/The New York TimesShe sought formal education in musical theater at New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts, where her acting teacher observed she was quite complex and wisely encouraged her to join the experimental theater wing.Christian describes herself as someone who “would go insane if you took away my pens and microphones.” During lockdown, she found new channels for her creativity in projects like “I Am Sending You the Sacred Face,” a one-person musical about Mother Teresa in collaboration with Joshua William Gelb, and even became a foley artist in order to adapt her show “Animal Wisdom,” an autobiographical cabaret, for film, which she hopes will be picked up by distributors. “I’m incredibly prolific, and I don’t say that as a brag,” she confessed, “it’s just how I function.”She explained that she needs to find functionality in her art, returning to work in “Oratorio” presents a new set of challenges. “Initially I made a Rorschach test for whatever people brought into it,” she said, but now she wants to “provide people with some optimism.”“I honestly think it’s going to take a little bit of work for me, and for people, to reimagine the performance space as a womb and a safe space,” Christian said. “The lucky thing is that with theater all it takes is lighting and sound and bodies to completely transform a space.”She added: “I forgot how much I love people, how much I thrive around people.” More

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      Metropolitan Opera’s Concert Honors Ukraine

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      A concert to benefit relief efforts featured a young Ukrainian singer, Beethoven’s “Ode to Joy” and the Met’s prima donna of the moment.Vladyslav Buialskyi stood center stage at the Metropolitan Opera, his hand on his heart, and sang the national anthem of his country, Ukraine.That was on Feb. 28, when the house reopened after a month off from performing and the Russian invasion of Ukraine was just a few days old. The company’s chorus and orchestra joined Buialskyi, a member of the Met’s young artists program, in a message of solidarity with him and his suffering people.Exactly two weeks later, on Monday, Buialskyi, a 24-year-old bass-baritone from the besieged port city of Berdyansk, stood center stage once more, his hand again on his heart, and sang the anthem with the orchestra and chorus.This time it wasn’t a prelude to Verdi’s “Don Carlos,” but the start of “A Concert for Ukraine,” an event hastily organized by the Met to benefit relief efforts in that country and broadcast there and around the world.Banners forming the Ukrainian flag stretched across the travertine exterior of the theater, bathed in blue and yellow floodlights. Another flag hung above the stage; a few in the audience brought their own to unfurl from the balconies. Seated in the guest of honor position in the center of the parterre, Sergiy Kyslytsya, Ukraine’s ambassador to the United Nations, responded to an ovation at the start by raising his arms and making resolute V-for-victory signs.The Ukrainian bass-baritone Vladyslav Buialskyi, a member of the Met’s young artists program, was featured in a performance of Ukraine’s national anthem.Caitlin Ochs for The New York TimesThe Ukrainian flag hung above the Met’s chorus and its orchestra, led by the company’s music director, Yannick Nézet-Séguin.Caitlin Ochs for The New York TimesIt has been a trying time for the Met, which broke with Anna Netrebko, its reigning diva, over her unwillingness to speak against the war and distance herself from President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia.But the conflict has also given the company — still bruised by labor battles despite remarkable success staying open during the Omicron wave — a sense of unity and moral purpose. Who would have predicted a few months ago that the Met’s general manager, Peter Gelb, broadly reviled within the ranks for imposing a long unpaid furlough on many employees during the pandemic, would get applause from some in the orchestra as he declared from the stage that they were “soldiers of music”?His remarks had a martial tinge, saying that the Met’s work could be “weaponized against oppression.” But much of the concert, led by Yannick Nézet-Séguin, the company’s music director, was consoling, with favorites like Barber’s Adagio for Strings, here fevered and unsentimental, and “Va, pensiero” from Verdi’s “Nabucco,” with its chorus of exiles longing for their homeland, “so beautiful and lost.” Most powerful was Valentin Silvestrov’s delicate, modest a cappella “Prayer for the Ukraine,” written in 2014 amid the Maidan protests against Russian influence.The soprano Lise Davidsen, the company’s prima donna of the moment, sang Strauss’s “Four Last Songs.”Caitlin Ochs for The New York TimesRichard Strauss’s “Four Last Songs” wasn’t quite on message, with its autumnal vision of accepting death’s imminence. But it provided a vehicle for the Met’s prima donna of the moment: the young soprano Lise Davidsen, currently starring in Strauss’s “Ariadne auf Naxos.”At opening night of “Ariadne” two weeks ago, Davidsen kept inundating the theater, seeming intent on proving just how much vibrating sound can flow out of her. It was thrilling, and a little much. At the performance of the opera on Saturday afternoon, she seemed consciously trying to restrain herself — even a bit tentative, fumbling a phrase in her opening aria and only gradually building to a true compromise of power and nuance.On Monday, Davidsen again seemed to be finding her way. Her high notes in the first of the “Four Last Songs,” “Frühling,” had a steely edge rather than soaring freedom; in “September,” she sounded muted in lower registers; and in “Beim Schlafengehen,” her phrasing was stiff. But she began “Im Abendrot” with a soft cloud of tone and proceeded with unforced radiance to an ending that felt light and hopeful.How the Ukraine War Is Affecting the Cultural WorldCard 1 of 7Olga Smirnova. More

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      Ukraine’s National Anthem Reverberates Around the World

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      Since Russia invaded Ukraine, the soaring melody of Ukraine’s national anthem has been heard worldwide, from antiwar protests in Moscow to the stages of major concert halls, from N.B.A. basketball arenas to TikTok posts.Known by its opening line, “Ukraine’s glory has not perished,” the anthem is being heard daily in Ukraine too, played by military bands in the middle of bomb-damaged cities, sung tearfully by women sweeping up debris in their homes and, on Saturday, in a vital open-air performance by an opera company in the port city of Odessa, despite fears of an imminent Russian bombing campaign.L’opéra d’Odessa vient de donner un concert hors les murs. FrissonsL’hymne ukrainien : pic.twitter.com/KcEYkTUpWW— Pierre Alonso (@pierre_alonso) March 12, 2022
      And on Monday night, the anthem shook the Metropolitan Opera House in New York, whose white travertine exterior was draped in an enormous Ukrainian flag and bathed in blue and yellow lights for its “Concert for Ukraine.”Alyona Alyona, one of Ukraine’s biggest rappers, said in a Skype interview from her home in Baryshivka, a town east of Kyiv, that she was hearing the anthem about “20 times a day” on Ukrainian TV, where it was being used to rally the country. She had contributed to a compilation of the country’s music stars singing it, she added. “This song has a very big meaning,” she said.Even in Russia, Ukraine’s anthem has been heard, with some antiwar protesters in Moscow having been filmed defiantly singing it while being arrested.Paul Kubicek, a political scientist at Oakland University who has written extensively about Ukraine, said the anthem was penned in the 1860s when much of what is today Ukraine was part of the Russian Empire. It was “a time of cultural awakening,” Kubicek said, with elites looking to “revive and celebrate a Ukrainian heritage that was at risk of being lost to a process of Russification.”Those elites included Pavlo Chubynsky, an ethnologist and poet, who in 1862 wrote the lyrics after being inspired by patriotic songs from Serbia and Poland. The following year, a composer and priest, Mykhailo Verbytsky, set Chubynsky’s words to music.Rory Finnin, a professor of Ukrainian studies at Cambridge University, said Chubynsky’s song was one of a host of texts that worried the Russian authorities around that time. In 1863, they began censoring almost all Ukrainian publications, Finnin said. Soon, Chubynsky was expelled from the country “for disturbing the minds” of the public, Finnin added.The Russian Empire’s efforts to quash Ukrainian identity didn’t meet with much success. After World War I, Chubynsky’s song was briefly made Ukraine’s anthem (in 1918, The New York Times published its lyrics) until the country was absorbed into the Soviet Union. The Soviet authorities later gave Ukraine a new anthem, claiming the country had “found happiness in the Soviet Union.”It was only after the Soviet Union collapsed that Chubynsky and Verbytsky’s work returned as the national anthem., and it has been a vital part of Ukrainian life ever since. In 2013 and 2014, it was sung hourly in Kyiv’s Maidan Square at protests against President Viktor F. Yanukovych’s push to make the country closer to Russia. Finnin said he was present at some of those protests and the anthem “was almost used for counting time.”Now, the anthem’s being used to inspire once more, both within the country and abroad. Below are some of the more notable international performances from the past two weeks:Emanuel Ax, Leonidas Kavakos and Yo-Yo MaTo open a recent performance at the Kennedy Center in Washington, the Greek violinist Leonidas Kavakos said he wanted to play Ukraine’s anthem as a sign of “respect and solidarity” with the country. What starts as a gentle, almost brittle, rendition, soon brings out the melody’s power.How the Ukraine War Is Affecting the Cultural WorldCard 1 of 7Olga Smirnova. More

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      Trinity Church Fires Conductor After Misconduct Accusation

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      The conductor, Julian Wachner, denied the allegation that he sexually assaulted a woman in 2014. The church said it had not verified the accusation, but fired him for behavior “inconsistent with our expectations.”Trinity Wall Street, the powerful New York church, said on Monday that it had fired its music director after receiving an allegation of sexual misconduct against him.On Saturday, Trinity said it had placed Julian Wachner, its acclaimed director of music and the arts, on leave as it investigated the allegation, which stemmed from a 2014 incident. But in a statement on Monday, the church’s rector, the Rev. Phillip A. Jackson, said that the church had fired Mr. Wachner.“The investigation is ongoing, and thus the investigator has not yet made any determination about the veracity of the 2014 allegations,” the church’s statement said. “Still, we have concluded based on recent information that Julian has otherwise conducted himself in a manner that is inconsistent with our expectations of anyone who occupies a leadership position. For this reason, Trinity has decided to end Julian’s employment with Trinity as of today.”The allegation was made by a former Juilliard School employee, Mary Poole. Ms. Poole said in an interview with The New York Times that during a music festival in Aiken, S.C., in 2014, Mr. Wachner pushed her against a wall, groped her and kissed her, and that he ignored her demands that he stop.Mr. Wachner denies the accusations. His lawyer, Andrew T. Miltenberg, said in an email on Monday: “We are exceptionally disappointed that Trinity has acted prior to completing a thorough investigation. Depriving Mr. Wachner of the benefit of the full narrative is the antithesis of due process and allows distortions to triumph over the truth.”Two people interviewed by The Times — a friend of Ms. Poole’s and a former colleague — recalled hearing Ms. Poole describe the details of the encounter with Mr. Wachner at the time. Ms. Poole said she did not report the incident to the police since she was in another state and pressed for time in the middle of a tour. She did report the incident to Juilliard, which said on Saturday that it was aware of “unacceptable conduct” by Mr. Wachner in 2014 and that it had not hired him again.Mr. Miltenberg, Mr. Wachner’s lawyer, said on Monday that “Juilliard’s statement, which Mr. Wachner saw for the first time in The New York Times, is flawed and erroneous.” He added that “Mr. Wachner continues to dispute the nearly decade-old, misleading and untrue allegations made against him.”In an interview on Monday, Ms. Poole praised Trinity’s decision to fire Mr. Wachner, adding that it was important that the church lead a thorough investigation into his behavior.“I hope this is the beginning of a bigger conversation about how we handle harassment in classical music, and how conductors are often held on a pedestal,” she said. “Everybody needs to be held accountable for the same kind of appropriate behavior in the workplace.”A conductor and composer, Mr. Wachner oversaw Trinity’s critically praised choir, Baroque orchestra and contemporary-music ensemble, which together present hundreds of events each year. These forces have perhaps been best known for their annual performances of Handel’s “Messiah”; in 2018, The Times credited Mr. Wachner with leading “the best ‘Messiah’ in New York.”In recent months, he has emerged as one of three finalists to serve as the next artistic director of the renowned Oregon Bach Festival. The festival has not responded to requests for comment. More

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      Review: A Recital Brings Together Two Schubert Masters

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      The pianist Mitsuko Uchida and the tenor Mark Padmore subtly threaded a program of Beethoven songs and Schubert’s “Schwanengesang.”It’s difficult to avoid superlatives when writing about Mitsuko Uchida and Mark Padmore.Especially when it comes to Schubert. Among pianists, Uchida is our reigning interpreter of his music — returning to it repeatedly, revealing ever more layers of mystery, wit and aching beauty. And Padmore, his tenor sound delicate and direct, with an unforced undercurrent of sadness, can feel like the incarnation of this composer’s style.As a pairing, Uchida and Padmore are wellsprings of wisdom and sensitivity, a truly equal partnership. The performances that result from their deep study of these scores are unpretentious master classes in the art of letting music speak for itself.Yet they have never recorded any Schubert together. (Padmore has released albums of this repertory with Paul Lewis and Kristian Bezuidenhout; Uchida, with Ian Bostridge.) So it was a gift to hear them in recital at Zankel Hall on Sunday in the posthumous collection “Schwanengesang” and Beethoven songs, including the pioneering cycle “An die ferne Geliebte,” all studies in extreme longing.Apart from “An die ferne Geliebte,” Beethoven’s lieder are chronically overlooked next to his towering achievements in the symphony, sonata and string quartet. But his songs are fascinating and unwieldy: shifting with little predictability among folk melody, recitative and concert aria virtuosity, sometimes from verse to verse. With their voice-forward writing, they put the most strain of the recital on Padmore, who can fill an opera house but scaled his sound back to Zankel’s intimacy, with flashes of full power all the more effective for their judiciousness.There were rattling contrasts even in the first song of the program: the Op. 94 setting, Beethoven’s second, of “An die Hoffnung” (“To Hope”), which starts with a recitative-like questioning of God’s existence before launching into lyrical lines that showcase the fine softness of Padmore’s upper range, and a radiant climax. “Resignation,” which followed, had the Schubertian spareness to which his voice is best suited; simpler still was “Abendlied unterm gestirnten Himmel” (“Evening Song Beneath the Starry Sky”), its closing chords of childlike purity played by Uchida as if a private prayer.“An die ferne Geliebte” (“To the Distant Beloved”) is often regarded as the first song cycle: six brief text settings, flowing without pause, in a precursor to longer Schubert masterpieces like “Die schöne Müllerin” and “Winterreise.” Throughout, Uchida and Padmore behaved like a single instrument; so thorough was their shared vision that they almost never cued or acknowledged each other, even for rubato stretchings of the line or for abrupt changes in tempo.As in the account of “Schwanengesang” (“Swan Song”) that followed, Padmore’s sound was remarkable most for its balance of clarity and character. Similar to Uchida, his performances are compelling — without the theatricality of, for example, Bostridge, who tends to serve Schubert with a side of self-immolation.“Schwanengesang” wouldn’t benefit from histrionics, anyway; a loose collection of Schubert’s final songs, it lacks the through line of his cycles, packing their intensity into discrete pieces that demand discrete interpretations. If one trait united them here, though, it was restraint. The famous “Ständchen” (“Serenade”), for example, has an expressive style that invites schmaltz, but also maintains a chilly distance in its articulation — a tension borne out in Padmore’s wide vocal contours and Uchida’s staccato, choked off like a series of declarations repeatedly withheld.Schubert verges on tone painting in some of the collection’s later songs; Uchida responded with pedal work that, in “Die Stadt” (“The Town”), allowed the rumbling low notes to evoke a dense fog occasionally penetrated by a mysterious run in the right hand, like an image coming in and out of focus. In “Der Doppelgänger” — one of Schubert’s most terrifying songs — she sustained dissonances, letting their uneasiness warp and linger under Padmore’s stark melody.The frighteningly open chords of “Der Doppelgänger” recall those of “Der Leiermann” at the end of “Winterreise,” but “Schwanengesang” concludes in an entirely different mood: “Die Taubenpost” (“Carrier Pigeon”), a comparatively sunny setting of text by Johann Gabriel Seidl. That pigeon, the narrator reveals, is named “die Sehnsucht,” or Longing.Speaking from the stage earlier in the recital, Padmore reflected on that word. He tallied its appearances in the Schubert and Beethoven songs, as a noun and a verb, and noted that it figures in the finales of both “An die ferne Geliebte” and “Schwanengesang.”Yet “Die Taubenpost” also ends by describing the bird as “the messenger of faithfulness.” Longing can be painful, yes; this recital’s poems suggested as much. But Uchida and Padmore also made a subtle argument that it can also be — with a clue in the first song’s cry of “O Hoffnung!” — hopeful.Mitsuko Uchida and Mark PadmorePerformed on Sunday at Zankel Hall, Manhattan. More

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      A Conductor on Why He Stayed in Russia After the Invasion Began

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      The Estonian American conductor Paavo Järvi chose to remain in Moscow temporarily to lead a Russian youth orchestra: “I felt a responsibility.”As the Russian military began its attack on Ukraine in late February, the Estonian American conductor Paavo Järvi was in Moscow, leading rehearsals for a long-planned engagement with a Russian youth orchestra.Järvi, who was born in 1962 in Tallinn, Estonia, then part of the Soviet Union, had a difficult decision to make. Friends urged him to cancel on the ensemble to protest the invasion. But Järvi, saying he did not want to disappoint the players of the Russian National Youth Symphony Orchestra, decided to stay in Moscow and lead the group in works by Richard Strauss on Feb. 26, two days after the invasion began, before departing on Feb. 27.Järvi’s appearance drew criticism in some corners of the music industry. The day after the concert, Järvi, the chief conductor of the Tonhalle Orchestra of Zurich and the NHK Symphony Orchestra in Tokyo, released a statement decrying the invasion and defending his decision.“These young people should not and cannot be punished for the barbaric actions of their government,” Järvi said in the statement. “I cannot turn my back on my young colleagues: Musicians are all brothers and sisters.”In an interview with The New York Times by email from Florida, Järvi reflected on his visit to Moscow, the scrutiny of Russian artists in wartime, and the future of cultural exchange between Russia and the West. These are edited excerpts from the conversation.As an artist who was born in the former Soviet Union, how do you view Putin’s invasion of Ukraine?It is hard even to find any words for what’s happening in Ukraine at the moment. It is totally barbaric, horrible, inhuman and shocking, yet ultimately unsurprising: In 1944, the Soviets did the same to Estonia, practically carpet bombing Tallinn to the ground.How does your Estonian heritage affect how you see this war?Deep suspicion and distrust (to put it mildly) of Soviets is virtually encoded in our DNA. My family left Estonia when I was 17 years old to escape the Communists. My parents and my grandparents never trusted the Soviets, but life here in the West makes you forget certain realities. Over the years, we of the younger immigrant generation have become more westernized, complacent and slowly accepting of the view that Russians have somehow changed and evolved, that they are no longer dangerous and can be treated as partners.Many of the older Estonians living abroad are still afraid to go and visit, not to mention move back to Estonia, because of their deep fear and hatred of Soviets. (I deliberately avoid using the word “Russians” because it is really the hatred of Soviets, Communists and Soviet leaders that we are referring to.)You were in Moscow just as the Russian invasion of Ukraine was getting underway. You have said you initially felt conflicted about your decision to stay to lead a concert. What was going through your mind?It has always been a part of my mission to give back to the next generation of musicians, which is why I regularly conduct youth orchestras. That was the reason I was in Moscow, but had the war already started, I would obviously not have traveled there.Everyone was already incredibly nervous and tense at the beginning of the week, and when it actually happened, there was complete shock.Why not cancel and leave, as some of your friends urged?I felt a responsibility. I could not turn my back on these young musicians at such a difficult and confusing time. I wanted for them to experience something meaningful. Something that could sustain them during the time of isolation and blockade that clearly was going to be imposed on them for a very long time, maybe decades.The concert was played in a spirit of defiance of the invasion and solidarity with the young musicians, and in deep solidarity and support of the Ukrainian people.Will you return to Russia to conduct while the invasion continues?I will definitely not return to Russia while the war is ongoing, and I find it very difficult to imagine returning even after the war is over, because long after it has finished, the human suffering, wounds, hatred and misery of ordinary people everywhere will continue for generations.What sort of engagement do you think artists in the West should have with Russia in light of the ongoing war? Is it necessary to isolate Moscow culturally, or should there be a free exchange of the arts?Artists outside of Russia should not be interacting with Russia at all so long as the war continues and innocent people are being bombed and dying.How do you think this war will affect the arts in Russia and Ukraine?The impact to Russian artists is going to be devastating. There will be a boycott for a very long time as a new Iron Curtain will be in effect. In the worst case scenario, there is probably going to be the old Soviet model that will be reinstituted. On every level — and culturally, of course, including music — life will be isolated from the West, similar to the former Soviet years.How the Ukraine War Is Affecting the Cultural WorldCard 1 of 6Paavo Järvi. More

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      Trinity Church’s Conductor Put on Leave Amid Investigation

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      Julian Wachner has been accused of sexually assaulting a Juilliard School employee during a music festival in 2014. He denies the accusation.Trinity Wall Street, one of New York’s wealthiest and most powerful churches, said on Saturday that it was placing its high-profile director of music on leave as it investigates an allegation of sexual misconduct against him.The director, Julian Wachner, a highly-regarded conductor, composer and keyboardist who has been a fixture at the church for more than a decade, has been accused by a former Juilliard employee, Mary Poole, of sexual assault. Ms. Poole said in an interview with The New York Times that during a music festival in 2014, Mr. Wachner pushed her against a wall, groped her and kissed her, and that he ignored her demands that he stop. Mr. Wachner denies the accusations.In a statement to The Times on Saturday, Trinity did not mention Ms. Poole by name but said the church first learned of “allegations of sexual misconduct” against Mr. Wachner last month from social media. Ms. Poole recently posted a detailed account of her encounter with Mr. Wachner on her social media accounts, saying, “I was totally violated.”Trinity said it had hired outside counsel to investigate. “Julian was placed on administrative leave on March 1 and will remain on leave during the investigation,” the church said in its statement. “Trinity takes these allegations very seriously.”Mr. Wachner, through an attorney, denied the accusations.“We respect Trinity’s decision to conduct a thorough investigation,” said the attorney, Andrew T. Miltenberg. “Ms. Poole’s outrageous allegations are categorically false and my client looks forward to the matter being resolved. Due to the ongoing nature of the investigation we cannot comment further at this time.”Ms. Poole helped organize a 2014 Juilliard festival in Aiken, S.C., that featured Mr. Wachner and the acclaimed Trinity choir. In the interview, Ms. Poole said that one evening, at a house where Juilliard staff members were staying, Mr. Wachner asked her to get him a drink. While she was preparing the drink in the kitchen, she said, he began to grope and kiss her for almost two minutes, even as she told him repeatedly to stop.Two people interviewed by The Times — a friend of Ms. Poole’s and a former colleague — recalled hearing Ms. Poole describe the details of the encounter with Mr. Wachner at the time. Ms. Poole said she did not report the incident to the police, since she was in another state and pressed for time in the middle of a tour.In the interview, Ms. Poole, who was 24 at the time, said that she felt powerless in dealing with Mr. Wachner, an influential figure in the classical music industry. “I felt like I could not defend myself,” she said, adding that at the time she worried she might suffer professional consequences if she spoke up. She said that she still has panic attacks that she attributes to the encounter.Ms. Poole reported the incident to Juilliard, which vowed not to hire Mr. Wachner again.In a statement on Saturday, Juilliard said it was aware of “unacceptable conduct” by Wachner in 2014.“Sexual misconduct or discrimination are not tolerated at Juilliard, and we take all allegations very seriously,” the school said in a statement. “At the time we offered our full support to Ms. Poole and informed Mr. Wachner that he would not be invited back to Juilliard in the future. Since that time we have had no relationship with Mr. Wachner.”Trinity, one of the city’s wealthiest churches, has a portfolio of office buildings, stock investments and residential development worth $6 billion — and a critically acclaimed music program.As director of music and the arts, Wachner oversees the church’s choir, its Baroque orchestra and its contemporary ensemble, which together present hundreds of events each year. He is perhaps best known for his annual performances of Handel’s “Messiah” — in 2018, The Times credited him with leading “the best ‘Messiah’ in New York.” He has been nominated for Grammy Awards and has collaborated with leading organizations, including Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center and the Los Angeles Opera.In recent months, Wachner has emerged as one of three finalists to serve as the next artistic director of the renowned Oregon Bach Festival. The festival did not respond to a request for comment on Saturday. More