Rolling My Eyes

Yesterday, San Francisco Symphony sent around this press release:

RAGNAR BOHLIN CONCLUDES 14-YEAR TENURE AS SAN FRANCISCO SYMPHONY’S CHORUS DIRECTOR

—The San Francisco Symphony today announces that Ragnar Bohlin will step down as the Orchestra’s Chorus Director at the end of August 2021. 

Bohlin began his tenure as Chorus Director of the San Francisco Symphony in March 2007. Under his leadership, the San Francisco Symphony Chorus received a Grammy for Best Choral Performance for the recording of Mahler’s Symphony No. 8 with Michael Tilson Thomas and the San Francisco Symphony. With the San Francisco Symphony and Chorus, Bohlin has conducted such works as J.S. Bach’s Christmas Oratorio and Mass in B minor, Handel’s 

Messiah, Arvo Pärt's Te Deum, and a cappella works such as Poulenc’s Figure Humaine. Bohlin is also the founding Artistic Director of the professional chamber choir Cappella SF with which he has recorded four CDs. In March 2013, he was awarded the Cultural Achievement Award from the Swedish-American Chamber of Commerce in San Francisco, and in 2018 the Michael Korn award from Chorus America. 

“In his fourteen years as Chorus Director, Ragnar has been a vital part of the San Francisco Symphony’s artistic leadership,” said San Francisco Symphony Interim CEO Matthew Spivey. “He is a gifted and expressive musician and has led the San Francisco Symphony Chorus through countless artistic achievements and memorable performances. He will be greatly missed, and we wish him well as he embarks on his next chapter.”

San Francisco Symphony Chorus performances in the 2021-22 Season include Ludwig van Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9; George Frideric Handel’s Messiah; Johannes Brahms’s Alto Rhapsody, Nänie, Gesang der Parzen, and Schicksalslied; Jack Perla’s arrangements of “Give Me Jesus,” “Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing,” and “My Soul’s Been Anchored in the Lord”; and semi-staged productions of Igor Stravinsky’s opera-oratorio Oedipus Rex and his Symphony of Psalms. The San Francisco Symphony will engage guest chorus directors to prepare these performances; more information about guest directors will be announced at a later date.

I thought that this was unfortunate in multiple ways; first, that with such a short notice period, SFS is without a chorus director with the season opening in around a month, second, that he has been an outstanding chorus director. Under his direction, the already-excellent SFS Chorus became more precise, diction improved, and general musicality seemed to get better.

But when I looked around for more information, I found Lily Janiak's Chron article, in which the headline and subhead say it all:  San Francisco Symphony Choral Director Ragnar Bohlin resigns over vaccine mandate;  Bohlin has been outspoken about his anti-vaccination views on his Facebook page.

Big sigh. The article has quotations from Bohlin, whom Janiak phoned, and SFS confirmed that this was why he resigned. I mean, a choir rehearsal was an early super-spreader event in this pandemic! There could be immunocompromised people in the SFS chorus! The room they rehearse in is not huge and I don't know how good the ventilation is. So, a lot of sighing and eye-rolling from here. (Including at the "critical thinker" over on Twitter who admired Bohlin standing up for his beliefs. I don't find it all that admirable when someone is willing to endanger others in the middle of a pandemic.)