Thursday’s (9/21) Daily Californian, the student publication of the University of California Berkeley, includes an op-ed piece by Matias Tarnopolsky, executive and artistic director of the Cal Performances series at UC Berkeley. “With the recent high-profile cancellation of Cal Performances’ season-opening performance by the National Youth Orchestra of Venezuela, originally scheduled for the evening of Sept. 21 at the Hearst Greek Theatre, the increasingly uneasy relationship between geopolitics and the arts—and the global issue of free speech—landed directly on my desk…. Sitting in the concert hall is among our society’s most democratizing acts. You may find yourself in a concert hall next to someone you know, or a stranger…. You may have shared or divergent views, be of potentially highly varied backgrounds, income and beliefs, yet you are each invited to share an experience of art…. What we hope for is dialogue; what we aspire to is enlightenment—some kind of collective betterment of understanding as a result of our shared experience…. The home of Cal Performances is UC Berkeley, birthplace of the historic Free Speech Movement. Let us show the world … through music, dance and theater, what that really means.”
Posted September 25, 2017
