When those responsible for the Lucerne Festival decided on the current topic of "diversity" around two years ago, they probably had no idea what a career the buzzword would soon have.
After two years of the pandemic and sloshing discussions about racism and gender, conceptual minefields have developed.
It doesn't seem to hurt the festival though.
The idea of expanding the canon of works and composers that are always the same in a playful way – as the artistic director Michael Haefliger puts it – met with approval, and the seemingly populist theme was apparently perceived above all from the perspective of a consensual pluralism.
The soup is not eaten as hot as it was reheated.
The opening day was preceded by a series of concerts with international youth orchestras.
The Brazilian string orchestra "Ilumina", conducted by violist Jennifer Stumm, mixes European works with elements of Brazilian popular music in its through-composed programme.
An interlude on the berimbau, once the cheering instrument for the black combat dance Capoeira, stood next to Robert Schumann, a beat on the candomble drum introduced the final Allegro from Ludwig van Beethoven's string quartet in C sharp minor, and after the youthful one played, with Richard Wagner's "Tristan" prelude enriched with choreographic elements was sung by the incomparable Mark Padmore, who had previously been waiting inconspicuously in the background for his performance,
Benjamin Britten's Rimbaud cycle Les Illuminations.
It all came together in a wondrous way – for European purists it was probably horrible, but from the point of view of a society where music is still understood as an elementary expression of life, it is completely normal.
The bracket is the vital, academically unencumbered practice of making music, which is only possible in a traditionally mixed society like Brazil's.
"Non-White" Orchestra
The opening act also included the English chamber orchestra with the suggestive name Chineke!.
The leader of the ensemble, which consists exclusively of "non-whites", is the double bass player Chi-chi Nwanoku, daughter of Irish-Nigerian parents.
She also had the honor of delivering the opening speech at the festival.
As a shrewd minority lobbyist, she took the opportunity to emphatically call for a greater presence of so-called People of Color – or PoC, as the ugly acronym used among like-minded people – in the symphony orchestras.
Who would mind?
As a successful double bass player, Nwanoku herself is the best example of integration.
The more difficult access to training, which she rightly points out, is a social and not a racist problem;
white Hartz 4 recipients are just as affected as black youth from problem areas.
Nwanoku also made the mistake of all missionaries of absolutizing the interests of their own group.
The many Asian people who are well integrated into our musical life are at best marginalized in their world view.