Tone Prose 55: The People United

A Canadian orchestra collapses; Police brutality in Alabama; CIM students rise up

Name That Tune

This week’s Name That Tune was submitted by Listener Jeremy. And although Will and I (Joey) are taking a populist approach to NTT, there’s only so much we can do about the Listeners’ submissions. Here’s your (big!) hint: this composer is famously someone’s son.

As always, your goal is to provide as much accurate analysis as possible. First try to get the nationality, year, and genre, then make educated guesses about the composer and — if possible— the piece. If you know the piece immediately, send us an email at toneprose@substack.com instead of commenting so the rest of us can have fun guessing. 

Last Week’s Results
Tone Prose 54
Tchaikovsky, The Voyevoda

The streak continues: we had a reader (who generally prefers to remain anonymous) weigh in again with the correct answer to this week’s NTT, and several other spot-on composer guesses from Listeners Laurie and Eric.

Listener Laurie used good process of elimination to narrow down what the piece wasn’t, since she was familiar with most of Tchaikovsky’s orchestral output. The Voyevoda is a tone poem from late in Tchaikovsky’s career on a particularly morbid subject. It’s full of drama and pathos, and yet, it hardly ever gets performed. 

¯\_(ツ)_/¯ 

Think you can stump your fellow Listeners? Go ahead and try!

Head to our Google Form to upload a 30-second clip of an unidentified piece of classical music for us to try to identify.

Culture Canceled

This past Monday, the Kitchener-Waterloo Symphony, a full-time orchestra based in Ontario’s twin cities, abruptly canceled its 2023–2024 season a mere four days before it was scheduled to begin. The 54 members of the orchestra found out the news at the same time it was reported to the general public, when the orchestra’s spokesperson put out a statement that the institution no longer had the financial wherewithal to present concerts.

The KWS (founded in 1945) suddenly canceling its season outright—as well as programming like its youth orchestra—was certainly a shock to ticket holders, but orchestra members felt particularly blindsided. For many, the symphony was their primary source of income, and a collective agreement was ratified as recently as this summer between the players’ union and the board. 

For those interested, the KWS musicians have wasted no time in creating a fundraiser with the goal of raising CA$2,000,000, the number cited by the Board of Directors as required to proceed with the 2023/24 season.

Band Director Tased & Arrested

This story has been covered in multiple outlets, including several local news sources in Alabama, but NPR has a nice encapsulation:

Minor High School band director Johnny Mims, 39, and his ensemble of 145 students were about a minute away from being done with their final song when a police officer approached the podium. According to both Mims and the Birmingham Police Department, officers asked Mims to stop the performance so they could clear out the stadium. Mims responded that the song was about to end and the performance was agreed on by both schools.

The entire confrontation was witnessed by dozens of students, parents and faculty members. On Tuesday, the Birmingham Police Department released body-worn camera footage of the incident.

Tased and arrested for conducting a band in front of all your students. Imagine.

The Battle of CIM

Things are going from bad to worse at the Cleveland Institute of Music. Things began to go awry this past April, when it was reported that the school’s newly-appointed director of orchestras, Carlos Kalmar, had been accused of harassment in several student evaluations, and that a Title IX investigation would be opened against him. The school’s Title IX coordinator sent the following message to the students:

“It was with great horror that I read one of Carlos Kalmar’s course evaluations. This is not the first time that I have heard his name – detailing inappropriate behavior of varying degrees,” Vivian Scott, the music conservatory’s Title IX coordinator, wrote on April 27 in an email sent to all students. “I am conducting an investigation into Mr. Kalmar’s behavior, but I need your help... If you have experienced (or observed) behavior on Mr. Kalmar’s behalf that can be considered sexual harassment, please contact me if you are willing to provide details.”

In the immediate aftermath of the allegations Kalmar denied any accusations of wrongdoing, but Anne Midgette, the Washington Post’s longtime classical music critic, backed out of the invitation she had accepted to appear at the school’s commencement ceremony, saying that several students had reached out to her to share their reports of Kalmar’s behavior:

“I was essentially hearing the same story over and over. I didn’t have anybody come in with, ‘Oh, no, that’s not true.’ Everybody was amplifying what the others had said,” she said. “I spoke to enough people to feel that it was just not going to be appropriate for me to be there.”

Just last month, the results of the Title IX investigation were reported, with Kalmar being “cleared” of sex discrimination or harrassment. On paper, it seemed that the situation would revert to the status quo ante. Kalmar’s defenders saw this as a vindication of the conductor’s reputation. It turns out there was much more to the story though, and the students, however, were not finished with their fight.

Classes resumed at CIM last week, and rather than participate in Kalmar’s first rehearsal with the CIM orchestra, the students all marched into the auditorium wearing blue in a show of solidarity. Instruments were kept in their cases and silence reigned as the conductor took the podium. According to the Case Western Observer:

The rehearsal itself initially began as usual, despite the visible lack of instruments on stage and the large number of audience members. Kalmar shook the hands of the concertmaster and associate concertmaster before giving some background on the piece they were set to rehearse—however, after talking for less than 10 minutes, he promptly ended the rehearsal, citing the lack of instruments.

[One student] stated that “The only way I see an end to this is if Carlos Kalmar steps down as conductor of the CIMO. Entire sections of the orchestra are refusing to play under him. My colleagues are justifiably furious with how the upper administration has turned a blind eye to the way he has treated them, and I stand with them.”

The first orchestra concert of the season has already been canceled.

Now look, I (Will) am not a journalist, and I don’t want to blow up anyone’s spot, but I do have some additional insight into this situation from a current CIM student whom I have every reason to believe, so here’s some additional background:

The woman quoted at the beginning of this post—CIM’s Title IX officer, Vivian Scott—was fired shortly after this investigation opened. She was replaced in that role by a high-ranking CIM dean who had been instrumental in hiring Kalmar in the first place. The “investigation” did not involve any actual hearings.

In advance of the rehearsal protest last week, the administration sent an email to the students threatening to dock their grades. In a meeting with students later, administrators told students that firing Kalmar was not be possible; since had been cleared in his Title IX investigation, he would have a legal basis to sue the school on the grounds that he had been dismissed without cause and that he had not been afforded a healthy, productive work environment.

I have no idea what is yet to come, but this isn’t over.

Tone Praise

Michael Sheeran, The Lyres of Ur

It’s been a while since we’ve had something weird in the newsletter, so it’s time to rectify that.

Michael Sheeran is a British composer and orchestrator whom I (Will) have recently come to know via internet correspondence because of his fascination with the microtonal music of my former teacher Easley Blackwood. Michael is an adept in the world of microtonal composition, which he aptly demonstrates in this fascinating work for a harp tuned to a septatonic scale, that is, an octave divided into seven equal steps.

Tone Prose is a co-production of William White, Joseph Vaz, and the Listeners (i.e. you.)