Elena Dubinets, Artistic Director of the London Philharmonic Orchestra, talks to us about the LPO’s 2024/25 theme and how working together, and our next concert with them on Wednesday 27th November, fits in to this important concept.
Elena Dubinets is a high-profile artistic leader and music scholar who became Artistic Director of the LPO in 2021. She previously held top artistic planning positions at the Atlanta and Seattle Symphony Orchestras in the USA. In 2018 she was named one of Musical America’s Professionals of the Year and since her arrival at the LPO she has been putting together themed series as part of each season. Elena also cares deeply about reflecting the values of the community in projects that bring people together to create and enjoy deep, meaningful explorations through all types of music.
An influencer who addresses both local and global issues, and is keen to embed an organisation’s mission in its communities, Elena is devoted to devising and presenting exciting experiences and music and memory is definitely one of those experiences – which is why it’s so important in the 2024/25 series. We spoke to her about her role, our collaborations and how the concept of this year’s theme – Moments Remembered – works with the season’s concerts and programming.
“We love working with the London Philharmonic Choir and it’s becoming a bigger and bigger priority for us to do big choral projects with the Choir, to have a great choir like LPC is so important. I can’t differentiate between singers and the orchestra – when I programme it’s important for me to look ahead at big opportunities but also smaller things such as Bach, the Adams piece that we’re doing together in January and this important upcoming concert. The inclusion of the Choir offers the orchestra unexpected opportunities to sound different as you add another medium and they have to be respectful and listen more carefully to create a better ensemble. I have noticed that when you work together the orchestra become better musicians.”
“We’ve been doing themed programming since 2022 to bring ideas together. When we do this we want to be relevant and touch people’s hearts and minds. This season I thought it would be interesting and inspiring to look not only at what music helps us to remember, but also to look at what certain pieces of music remind us of and the kinds of memories they take us back to in time, and how musical memories impact all of us; hence Moments Remembered.”
“We all remember where we were when we heard various pieces of music or what they mean to us and our friends and family, but music can also remind or tell us stories of things from the past, so that is what we are exploring this season. We are also working with other groups and organisations, looking at how music helps those with memory issues such as dementia, and how music can be used with the elderly to help remind them of important times in their lives. Schubert and Schumann both had memory loss at the end of their lives, so programming their music is an important part of this series as well.”
This season’s LPO Writer-in-Residence, Jeremy Eichler, expands on this theme:
“Each of us consists of multiple types of memories; we epitomise our times, our countries our family and our personal situations. What interests me is the crossroads of our feelings. And that’s the beauty of our art form: emotionally it might inspire you to have very different reactions in any given moment. One function of art is to help us ask questions. And in all its contradictory forms, memory, like music, is part of what makes us human.”
Our concert on the 27th of November is entitled “A Dark Century” and is highlighted in the LPO’s programming for this concert:
“Three composers cry out in the void. Confronted by unimaginable horror, Schoenberg rediscovered his Jewish roots, and created a musical drama of savage, defiant courage, in tribute to the Holocaust victims. In Soviet Russia, the authorities expected Shostakovich to write a propaganda symphony: but what they got was a searing denunciation of man’s inhumanity to man – more potent, and more urgent than ever in 2024. As part of the LPO’s exploration of memory, Andrey Boreyko conducts three testaments from a dark century – with the outstanding male voices of the London Philharmonic Choir and the incomparable Gidon Kremer as soloist in the Violin Concerto by Mieczysław Weinberg: composer, survivor and Shostakovich’s most devoted friend.”
We asked Elena what in particular inspired the programming for this concert.
“A Survivor from Warsaw is Schoenberg’s tribute to the Holocaust victims of the Second World War. Schoenberg wrote it to remember and to commemorate The Holocaust for specific audiences in America. It was a small commission at the time in 1947/8 and the Kosciuszko Foundation funded it. Schoenberg was very impacted by this piece which was premiered in Alberquerque. He essentially wrote it for himself at his own will because it was so important for him to do it, but it was also a musical drama of savage, defiant courage, in tribute to the Holocaust victims.”
“In the first instance it was a collaboration with a dancer. He then lost the dancer but kept the men’s choir; the story rotates around a survivor from the Warsaw ghetto. The rest of the concert is very much related to this theme; the second composer is Weinberg whose Violin Concerto is played by Gidon Kremer. Weinberg barely escaped from the Warsaw ghetto; he aimed to escape by foot and was pushed out by his parents, along with his sister. Tragically, she turned back to change her shoes and never escaped. His parents and his sister perished, but he escaped so he was “A Survivor from Warsaw”.”
“Weinberg became friends with Shostakovich, soul mates in fact, and they influenced each other deeply. All of Shostakovich’s Jewish influenced music was influenced by Weinberg so our second piece of the concert is his Violin Concerto. Our last piece in the concert is Shostakovich’s Symphony No. 13 (Babi Yar) which is about the Holocaust in the Soviet Union; in Ukraine in particular. The whole programme is in fact centred around the date of Kristallnacht so this will be a memorable experience for our audience as well as for many, many other people.”
Learn more at the pre-concert talk by the LPO’s Writer-in-Residence Jeremy Eichler – 6.15–6.45pm in the Royal Festival Hall.
Come and hear us
Wednesday 27th November 2024
7.30pm, Royal Festival Hall
Andrey Boreyko conductor
Gidon Kremer violin
Alexander Roslavets narrator/bass
London Philharmonic Orchestra
London Philharmonic Choir
Schoenberg A Survivor from Warsaw
Weinberg Violin Concerto
Shostakovich Symphony No. 13 (Babi Yar)
