The Winnipeg New Music Festival Abandons its History

and Promotes Anti-Communism

The 14^th annual Winnipeg New Music Festival was held from January 29 to February 4. For the past 13 years the festival has presented new trends and developments in the world of classical and New Music. It has introduced Winnipeggers and Manitobans to numerous new composers and performers, many of whom have come to the festival and used the opportunity to explain the influences, challenges and purposes of their music. During those last 13 years a stimulating atmosphere has existed in which all sorts of musical questions have been eagerly discussed.

The festival has often adopted a theme as a means to give some organization to the year’s work. In past years themes have included women composers, the percussive influences in New Music, choral music, and visual and electronic influences in New Music, amongst others. This year the announced theme was the reflection in New Music of the works of past musical, literary and visual artists. The festival program stated: “During the 20^th century many composers felt the need to cut themselves off from historical influence. We believe that this pendulum is now swinging in the opposite direction. The composers you will hear at this year’s festival recognize the great variety of musical and artistic traditions and place ‘classical’ music in a much broader world context.”

Under this guise, appropriating the idea of historical influence, the curators of the festival – Conductor Andrey Boreyko and Composer-in-Residence Patrick Carrabre – introduced the theme of an attack on communism and the promotion of religion in its place. Rather than presenting a program of New Music that reflects the works of past musical, literary and visual artists, as they promised, their choice of certain composers and comments in their program notes, presented Winnipeggers with their political views of communism.

The chosen Distinguished Guest Composer this year was the Ukrainian-Russian Leonid Desyatnikov. The festival opened with his work The Rite of Winter 1949, which parodies a textbook used in the Soviet Union to teach English to children. Of this composition the program stated: “Desyatnikov brings us face to face with the false positivism of Joseph Stalin’s rule… [He] gives us a glimpse of the true Russian spirit that waited beneath the oppressive domination of Soviet Socialism.” The festival also included works by fellow self-avowed, anti-communists Polish-Canadian Peter Paul Koprowski and Russian Alex Levkovich.

If audience members were not clear about the direction of the festival, it was spelled out during the week when, during a concert entitled The Triumph of Heaven, festival co-curator Patrick Carrabre announced that the festival’s program was following an arc from the depth of human experience of communism to the heights of heaven. That evening’s concert opened with a work by Alex Levkovich described in the program notes: “As on our opening night, this music looks back at the era of Soviet domination and asks why?”

Interestingly, the organizers of the festival admitted: “While communism wasn’t a musical style per se and despite the fact that artists working behind the iron curtain were often subjected to harsh censorship, some of the most fertile minds we have heard from at recent festival (Kancheli, Part, Silvestrov, etc.) forged their musical voices during those difficult times.” However, rather than encouraging a serious discussion of the vibrant cultural life in the Soviet Union, particularly during the Stalin era, the organizers editorialized using ridicule and hyperbole to block and suppress any such discussion.

The problem for the organizers is that any serious and dispassionate discussion of the Stalin era would inevitably have to come to grips with the reality that during this period there was an unprecedented flourishing of all kinds of culture within the Soviet Union. Some of the greatest cultural workers in the world emerged during that period in literature, music, dance and art. Journalism also reached new heights during that period. In terms of mass culture, this period witnessed the first real attempt in human history to educate an entire population and the result was an extremely rapid advance in all academic fields and the creation of millions of scientists, doctors and teachers. Chess became a mass participation sport. How is it possible to reconcile this reality with the tales told by the anti-communists of rampant terror, torture and persecution of cultural workers? Can they point to a similar raising of cultural standards in Nazi Germany or Fascist Italy or for that matter in “democratic” Britain or the United States? Can they explain what has happened to mass culture in Russia and other former Soviet Republics now that they have emerged from what the organizers call the depth of human experience of communism and arrived at the so-called heights of heaven? It is precisely because a serious discussion of Soviet culture during the Stalin era would shatter their anti-communist stereotypes that the festival organizers saw fit to prejudice the discussion with trite propaganda.

Until now, the Winnipeg New Music Festival has been a place where an engaging and broad range of music has been presented. These works have been presented in a spirit that says: “Here you are. Enjoy this abundance of New Music. Listen to it. Argue about it and come to your own conclusions.” It would be a positive contribution for the festival to return to such an approach in the future. There is certainly a need for a discussion of the accomplishments of the Soviet Union during the Stalin period. The creation of such a high level of mass culture, as well as the creation of some of the greatest artists of our time, indicate that Soviet socialism must have been doing some things right. The fact that socialism collapsed and the high ideals once promoted by Soviet culture have been replaced by narrow nationalism, capitalist greed and religious obscurantism also indicate that various errors must have been made. However, as long as the discussion of the Stalin era remains at the level of Cold War propaganda and wild, unsubstantiated accusations, a serious and dispassionate discussion is impossible.

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