Scholarship Shmolarship
I recently applied for a scholarship (which will not be named). The interview was uncomfortable - mainly because there were no representatives from the humanities on the panel - and reaffirmed the arguments that this blog has been espousing. As supporting documents for the application I submitted a personal statement which talked about issues of antisemitism* in music as my main area of interest; a link to this blog was also included in my CV. I would hope that all of the panelists read both, but it seems the message was lost. One panelist obviously thought they were on the ball, asking confidently: 'Should we listen to Wagner?'. This is an worn and somewhat irrelevant. Firstly, music taste is highly personal: you can listen to Wagner if you like, or not if you don't like. Secondly, I don't believe that most people who listen to Wagner (or indeed programme Wagner's music in concerts or for broadcast) do so politically. What matters more is how we talk about Wagner.