There is a world-renowned composer in our midst, and yesterday was her 90th birthday. It’s surprising how many people don’t know that Thea Musgrave (pictured) spends about half of each year in Southern California, but yes indeed, she is one of us. Thea and her husband, conductor Peter Mark, travel back and forth between NYC and their California home in Playa del Rey, and while they’re in New York to attend a few of the celebratory concerts planned, we hope they’ll return to us soon. Visit her website and Like her Facebook page to read more about Thea and check out the growing international list of events that feature her work during this milestone year. It’s a great way to say
Happy Birthday, Thea!
One of the concert series featuring selections from her wide range of pieces is the BBC Proms, and not only does she embody the creative force that has brought us extraordinary works in the last several decades, but Tom Service has used her as an example of the diverse product of this incredibly productive artistic era. He uses her name and others to make a salient point: that our concept of “classical music” is far too narrow. It’s not about dead white European dudes anymore. There is so much to choose from and includes so many different ideas and styles and combinations of the same, that both our mindset and our nomenclature about what we do is long overdue to change.
Read Tom’s Evening Standard article, more thinkpiece than series preview, here:
Don’t just call the Proms ‘classical’: they tick so many more boxes
As for Thea, we wish her a marvelous birthday and the well-earned full license to, as she says, “do what the &#*(% I want!” (Yes, she’s awesome.)
This topic has been getting some interesting traction around the web for the last couple of years. Take a look at the comments after this April poll from WQXR: https://www.wqxr.org/story/poll-does-classical-music-need-name-change/
(For the record, “orchestral music” would not be our choice!!!)