The Israel Philharmonic visited California last week. I saw them in 2022 on their previous swing through the U.S., and I was not thrilled with what I heard. I didn't much care for Lahav Shani's conducting and thought the orchestra too loud and undisciplined. There were a few protesters outside.
I was out of town when they played at Davies and wouldn't have gone anyway, but I pass on the reports of their performances here and in Orange County. The protests, unsurprisingly, were much, much bigger, in light of Israel's ongoing assaults on Gaza, which have results in 50,000 deaths and entire cities pulverized. I don't care if you call it genocide or war crimes; it shouldn't be happening. (Neither should Hamas's October 7, 2023 murders, of course. Israel's response has been disproportionate, same as the U.S.'s destruction of Iraq over the crime of 9/11.)
- Rebecca Wishnia, SFCV, reviews the concert and reports on the protests
- Joshua Kosman, On a Pacific Aisle, discusses the protests and why he protested instead of attending the concert
- Timothy Mangan, Culture OC, reviews the concert and reports on the protests
1 comment:
I didn't go, but more because I wasn't interested in the program and because SFS has gotten incompetent at promoting its guest concerts, than for political reasons. I found myself weighing the same factors in 2022 as I would have today: Gaza didn't give Netanyahu's regime its character; it was already like that. The question at hand is, how much do you want to put the onus on the orchestra for it? And that will have to be a personal decision.
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