The Obiora ensemble, made up of musicians from diverse backgrounds and which set up its first full season in 2023-2024, presented on Saturday Influences, his “concert as part of Black History Month.” Being delighted to see the ensemble gradually gaining an audience does not prevent us from asking questions about the meaning of the words and the artistic paths taken.
We returned to the Salle Pierre-Mercure on Saturday to see Obiora again after his inaugural concert on October 14. Several very encouraging points. Even though the invitation table was filled with a notable number of envelopes, there was a real pool of spectators in the room, rather young, sometimes families, who stood out from the other audiences, a respectful and very enthusiastic audience. This bet, expressed before the launch of the season by Allison Migeon, director of Obiora, in The duty, which spoke of a new audience likely to come because they would find their mirror on stage, seems to have a real basis. This is not without raising a capital artistic question to which we will return.
Well chosen guest
Another nice surprise: the conductor Daniel Bartholomew-Poyser, born in Montreal, and to whom Obiora offered the first concert in Montreal. Given the perceived competence of this musician, resident conductor in charge of community engagement and education at the San Francisco Symphony, who occupies more or less the same functions in Toronto and in Ottawa, this concert was important.
That said, for a “concert presented as part of Black History Month,” we would have appreciated something other than seeing this one injustice repaired. Indeed, in the program, blacks were absent to say the least, with a work by a composer born in Sri Lanka, raised in Dubai, trained in London and living in Ottawa, two Argentine compositions and a work by the musical standard bearer of the colonialist imperialism of Edwardian England. We saw better!
This is where the questions arise: Obiora to say what and do what? Words and artistic choices have weight. We forget that a little quickly. Words first. When Mme Patricia Isaac, chair of Obiora’s board of directors, said before the concert: “Diversity and inclusion are more important than ever. ” ” Than ever ? » What would Malcolm X, Martin Luther King, or Rodney King and his ilk think of this? What would the formidable Emilie Mayer, who was unable to get her symphonies published, and therefore performed, say about it? And, in her image, all her 19th century composerse century, forced to compose piano pieces and melodies, because a woman was not allowed to compose in a more “serious” genre?
Assignment
The fundamental question then arises as to whether, precisely, an ensemble of “diversity” must also highlight the music of those, such as Elgar, who encouraged this segregation or prospered thanks to it, or whether it must be the crossroads for the “rehabilitation” of Emilie Mayer and other oppressed people.
The pioneering ensemble in the field, Chineke!, in the United Kingdom, has clearly chosen its side, even causing trauma in October 2023 by refusing, on tour in Switzerland, to play the national anthem on the day of death of Queen Elizabeth II. The founder and artistic director, Chi-chi Nwanoku, then declared: “Chineke! is made up of musicians, not all of whom are British, moreover several are the direct fruit of the slavery of their ancestors”, adding that “the Empire was mainly built on racism and the plunder of Africa”.
Here we are. Chineke! is the paragon of “ensembles of diversity” and, even if we cannot doubt the personal interest of Daniel Bartholomew-Poyser for a work by Elgar (the Enigma Variations) celebrating his friends, one can doubt the interest, in terms of mission, of seeing Obiora program the absolute musical standard-bearer of the colonialist Empire, author of The Crown of India and other “wonders” of the genre, just as one can doubt the interest of hearing a work regularly programmed at the OM or the OSM, certainly played with ardor, but with the means at hand and without an organ at the END. And to “de-Elgarize” the debate: should we, in Obiora, play “hits”, less well than elsewhere, for a new audience or give voice to the best of the excluded for the benefit of all, neophytes and music lovers? curious ?
It is noted that Dinuk Wijeratne is the conductor of Obiora’s next concert. This perhaps explains, more than the artistic or orchestration quality, the presence of Polyphonic Lively at this concert. As for the Argentine works, although not rare, they have proven that tango in the orchestra always works well. Juan Sebastian Delgado and Marcelo Nisinman’s arrangement of Great tango to add strings were ad hoc.
Where will Obiora go and how? The ball is in his court.