Can Music Soothe a Troubled World? [Senate approves $57 million for arts/music exchange program]

NPR ^ | June 2003 | NPR

[summer]

Roberta Rust performs at a lecture recital in Brazil as part of the 1985-86 Artistic Ambassador tour.


Autograph seekers envelope Artistic Ambassador Robert Roux after he performed at the Cagliari Conservatory of Music in Sardinia. Five hundred people attended the concert, which was part of the 1984-85 tour.

Can Music Soothe a Troubled World?

In a time when much of the world is growing wary of American unilateralism, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee has put $57 million in the next federal budget to win new friends through overseas exchange programs.

And since some of the money is targeted for musical exchanges, two old hands from the U.S. Information Agency are at work on the Public Diplomacy Initiative for Classical Music. Dr. John Robilette and Robert Schadler are essentially trying to revive the USIA's Artistic Ambassador Program of the 1980s.

Robilette, a classical pianist, started the original program and saw it succeed in 63 countries. American classical musicians were sent overseas as cultural ambassadors after auditions were held in all 50 states. The new initiative also will help bring young foreign artists to the United States following a worldwide music competition.

Schadler, a former senior adviser at the USIA, now serves as president of the non-profit Committee for Western Civilization, which organizes cross-cultural and artistic events. Robilette's initiative is a project sponsored by the Committee.

Acclaimed classical pianist Byron Janis is to head an advisory board composed of prominent artists and cultural patrons. The board would identify gifted but little-known young artists and help competition winners further their careers with a series of six major fee-paying concerts before American audiences.

The board also will seek out talented American musicians and help them find a stage abroad. And some young musicians who show great talent but require further seasoning will have opportunities to enter a U.S. degree program or study privately with a master musician.

Music is an international language, reaching countless human hearts. Janis knows this well. At 35, he went to the former Soviet Union for a month-long tour. Foreign correspondent Osgood Caruthers described a Janis concert in a Nov. 3, 1960 article in The New York Times: "The ovations accorded to Janis have surpassed those for the other American artists... Men and women in the audience tonight wept as Mr. Janis played Rachmaninoff and they broke down all reserve when they heard for the first time in a live performance of George Gershwin’s Concerto F with an orchestra."

In his late 40s, Janis developed psoriatic arthritis, a crippling disease which prevented him from recording for 34 years. But in 1997, still battling the disease, Janis returned to play live concerts despite painfully swollen fingers. His album -- Byron Janis Plays Chopin -- won the critics' choice category in NPR’s Performance Today Awards. And Janis became the national spokesman for the Arthritis Foundation.

Janis is already lending his prestige to the recruiting of music schools and conservatories as he builds support for the new initiative. Several institutes have already agreed signed on, including Rice University’s Shepherd School of Music and the Eastman School of Music in Rochester, N.Y.

[summer]

I posted this article for several reasons, knowing that some people may see this expense as merely "pork" - but I disagree with them.

Cultural exchanges - including having gifted American classical musicians go abroad to perform - can do much, IMO, to change the way the world often sees America via a tawdry Hollywood lens.

In addition, I think this cultural program deserves mention alongside of other efforts of the US government to deter terrorism, including the new initiative to create a virtual trading market on terrorism, as described in this FR thread:
Senators say Pentagon plan would allow betting on terrorism, assassinations

Whether it's classical music or betting you prefer, I believe you have to give the GOP some credit for continuosly attempting to deal with terrorism and the international stage from a variety of different angles.

Finally, a committee mentioned in this NPR article -- the "Committee for Western Civilization" -- seems to have conservative roots, as another project it sponsors is the following, described on ConservativeClassics.com:





A project of Committee for Western Civilization Organized by Alfred Regnery, Robert Reilly, Robert Schadler & Jon Utley

"This project is designed to make available electronically some of the classic books of the past which are now no longer conveniently available."

P.S. Meanwhile, I am still waiting to see some creative solutions from the opposition party on how to fight this war on terror -- and market America to the world.

[subterfuge]

Not merely pork. Expensive pork. $57 mil? Why not make it an even 100?

[summer]

I don't know enough details to defend the amount, but I think this is a good step for our country, and one that will reap benefits far beyond any dollar amount.

[joesnuffy]

More PORK

[summer]

FYI.

[summer]

I think "pork" is money that derives no benefits for anyone, and such is not the case in a fine arts program abroad. The world needs to know what we actually value in this country. This program is a much-needed step in reminding them.

[Consort]

...The Throat Singers of Tuva.

[KantianBurke]

You like it so much? YOU pay for it! The Federal govt was designed to have limited roles and powers. Putting on concerts so turd world countries and euro trash might like us ain't one of them.

[summer]

LOL...well, that photo seems to go against the philosophy expressed in the article: Music is an international language, reaching countless human hearts. [not "throats"}

[beachn4fun]

Sorry. This is pork. Taxes were not created for this purpose. It was created for defense of our country and taking care of our infrastructure.

Whenever we take taxes from our much needed purposes (e.g., schools, roads, defense) and give it to special interest groups and/or welfare programs, it means we will eventually have to cough up more money for taxes later on to pay for our essentials. The Arts should be funded by private interests. There are plenty of rich people/companies out there who would love the tax credit for funding a "needy" cause.

[summer]

YOU pay for it!

I already AM paying for it. And, I don't mind, because in addition to my own love of the arts, there is the very cold, hard fact that: Having hearts and minds on your side is already an established goal of any national security program. I don't mind having others treat our troops with respect.

[summer]

It was created for defense of our country

I agree, and that's why I think it is appropriate the committee that approved funding for this program is the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. It seems to me they have a legitimate interest in our country's defense.

But, like I said at the beginning - I already knew people would feel the way you described. What is much harder to describe is how others, elsewhere, feel when they see, hear and experience fine art created by Americans.

[KantianBurke]

Yeah. Hearts and minds through kiddie music groups. That's certainly up there on our list of national security goals. Once again, you shell out the dough and go back to ur NPR klitsch! Most of the rest of us on planet earth are interested in making sure terrorists get killed and the size of govt shrinks.

[beachn4fun]

What is much harder to describe is how others, elsewhere, feel when they see, hear and experience fine art created by Americans. They still can. It just needs to be funded by private sources, NOT our tax dollars.

It seems to me they have a legitimate interest in our country's defense. Please explain that one to me.

[summer]

You should check out this site, from the USIA (US Information Agency), which does a much better job than I can in explaining why this kind of diplomacy is so vital to America's security:

CLICK HERE and scroll down.

I think you'll see I am already on Planet Earth.

[summer]

See the info at linked in my post #15.

[summer]

See the info linked in my post #15.

[summer]

An excerpt from the link in my post #15:

"There is no region so sensitive and no issue so hard-edged that it does not benefit from public diplomacy...[these] programs not only advance the understanding around the world of U.S. policies, but, equally important, U.S. values and ideals." - Joseph Duffey

...(2) What is "public diplomacy? ...USIA foreign service officers abroad build bridges of communication between the United States and the host country. They practice the art of public diplomacy as they explain to foreign audiences both the complexities of U.S. society and culture and the U.S. Government's foreign policy agenda. 2. What is "public diplomacy?" Public diplomacy seeks to promote the national interest through understanding, informing, and influencing foreign publics and broadening dialogue between American citizens and institutions and their counterparts abroad. America's public diplomacy is the primary responsibility of the the U.S. Information Agency, which manages this website.

USIA explains and supports American foreign policy abroad and promotes U.S. national interests through a wide range of broadcast, information, educational and cultural exchange programs. USIA maintains 190 "posts" in 142 countries....

[KantianBurke]

Boy info from the US Info Agency. Wow they wouldn't have a vested interest in seeing programs like this get funded now would they??? Naaaaaaaaaaaaaaw. They're just doing it out of the kindness of their hearts.

Having kiddie musicals has and will have little to no impact on our security. Now having the military blow the living #$%#@#$% out of the bad guys WILL. Case closed.

[summer]

Having kiddie musicals has and will have little to no impact on our security

Well, Gov Bush was praising the military just the other day for making personnel connections to people, and for giving school books to children, and doing other things that you did not mention.

I think there is a place for such acts in this world. It is not all a "kiddie musical" -- it is called winning hearts and minds. Ask a military person what it means, and I am sure they can tell you it's important to them and can well be a factor in the success of their miliary missions.