Festival boss Haefliger calls for more diversity

Mr. Haefliger, is your motto for this year’s festival a code for everything that should be different in today’s music world?

It is deliberately a very overarching term. We actually got into the topic of “diversity” back in 2016, namely with the motto “PrimaDonna”. At that time, diversity meant specifically: more female conductors, more women on the podium. In 2017, we then took a further step with the key theme of “Identity”. Among other things, we dealt with gender issues and worked with refugees. Now we’re going one step further and entering the eye of the hurricane, so to speak. However, this will not be the end of the journey either, since all of these topics will accompany the music world for the foreseeable future.

However, diversity can also be a pot of colour. What are your priorities?

We set clear accents in the area of ​​people of color and want to question why so few of them appear in the world of classical music to this day. They are not only underrepresented as performers, but also as composers on our programmes. There were already great black composers 200 years ago, especially in America. Florence Price, for example, who will play an important role with us. With our “artiste étoile” Tyshawn Sorey, one of the most distinguished contemporary musicians from this field is coming to Lucerne. In addition, many artists of the debut series deal with the topic. And when Anne-Sophie Mutter plays a violin concerto by Joseph Bologne, Mozart’s black contemporary, in the opening concert, I hope that makes a clear statement. However, if you delve deeper into the topic, you quickly realize: The whole thing is an open-ended journey – hard to believe what is buried there and never had a chance to be heard by a wider audience!

But diversity is not just a question of skin color or the identity of the performers. It is also a theme in the music itself, for example in the form of stylistic plurality. To what extent is this reflected in the festival programme?

For me, Olivier Messiaen’s “Turangalîla Symphony”, which we will hear from the Vienna Philharmonic under Esa-Pekka Salonen, is one of the most diverse pieces of all. An epochal work! Messiaen succeeds in not just citing a multitude of influences and musical styles, but in integrating them organically into his very own way of composing. The fact that elements of another culture are transferred into one’s own has nothing to do with misappropriation, as is the case in Dvořák’s symphony “From the New World”, for example. Similarly, influences from American folklore and elements of jazz can also be heard in Florence Price. That sounds very playful and also humorous.

What do you say to people who would still prefer to hear Johannes Brahms’ 4th Symphony in concert?

It’s a trade-off between different pieces that we, as festival makers, have to make with almost every program. Of course, one would have the safe option with the Fourth by Brahms, incidentally also when it comes to ticket sales. But in this case I am totally convinced of the alternative and believe that the audience can also discover and be fascinated by something in Florence Price’s symphony. In addition, Yannick Nézet-Séguin, who has just recorded the piece and is also performing it here with his Philadelphia Orchestra, is an incredible advocate of this music. I am sure that the performance will be an important contribution that can inspire people. Such projects are ultimately what makes a festival.

Why do you have to exhibit diversity at all instead of just taking it for granted? Doesn’t that underline the unusual, maybe even the exotic, or at least the separating again?

I think such clear statements are needed. We want to show how the discussion that is currently taking place in our society is also being conducted in classical music. That is our concern, we want to present it in as many facets as possible.

Diversity of origin and personal life plans is, however, a social fact in most western countries today. A fact that is politically controversial but can hardly be denied. Why do you still have to present diversity when it is actually the rule?

Diversity is not yet normal in musical life! And that will also take time. We already saw this in 2016 with «PrimaDonna», the topic of women in music, which is part of the diversity debate. A lot has happened in the six years since then. This is not solely our merit. But as one of the big festivals in the world of classical music, you can initiate a lot, you can also be active as an icebreaker. And when it comes to diversity, there’s still some ice-breaking to do.

Nevertheless, “Diversity” is certainly the most politically charged festival motto for years. Accordingly, even after the program was presented, there was criticism that you were currying favor with the zeitgeist. Does this accusation apply to you?

I have to live with that. If you want to initiate something, you will also encounter resistance. In the end, it is more important to me that we drive forward a development that has long been gaining momentum in other areas of culture as well. Because maybe we can do something valuable for the entire music industry. You have to stand by certain beliefs, no matter what others think about them. For me, there is no question that there are grievances in the industry. It has nothing to do with the zeitgeist. We want to tackle these grievances, but without foaming at the mouth, without ideology, but creatively and with a lot of fascinating content, with exciting music that many people don’t know yet. It’s all about this.

How do you want to prevent the whole thing from remaining a kind of alibi event, after which one returns to the usual business?

We will certainly follow this up, these are first steps. But we can’t do it to that extent every year, that’s for sure. The market, the world of classical music, is simply not advanced enough for the relevant offers to be available. But for me, an alibi would be to pursue the idea of ​​an equal participation of all ethnic and socially relevant groups somehow casually or coyly in the background.

The concern with such socio-politically motivated concerns is that what is morally correct is not always automatically the best artistically. How do you balance that?

I don’t think classical music runs the risk of crashing in terms of quality or content when it opens up. At the Lucerne Festival, we aim to present a wide variety of music in constantly changing interpretations with the world’s leading orchestras and the best artists. Many programs are of course based on the established canon, which can’t be any different at a public festival that has to be financed almost exclusively privately. But we also have the task of discovering new works and artistic developments outside of our narrow perception and making the previously unknown accessible. When top-class artists like Yannick Nézet-Séguin campaign for such pieces to be included in the programs, you then set qualitative standards yourself with such an interpretation. The Lucerne Festival doesn’t have the problem that we don’t present enough lace. I think we present them in their entirety every year. But there is also an obligation to assume a certain responsibility with regard to cultural-political issues and to show the basis on which something new is created.

It becomes difficult in artistic establishments when the largely undisputed demand for equal rights for minorities is to become concrete equality, for example when filling orchestra positions. Chi-chi Nwanoku, the director of the two “Chineke!” ensembles that will open and close the Lucerne “Diversity” program, goes so far as to call for “positive discrimination”. This means that given the same qualifications, whoever represents an underrepresented group should get the chance. Can you imagine such a measure for the Lucerne Festival Orchestra?

For me, the criterion of artistic achievement is paramount. In addition, there are also individual and subjective factors in the selection process, such as how a person fits into the orchestra and the respective group of instruments. Will the collaboration work? How can the person be used? These are artistic and at the same time pragmatic considerations that you have to make in order for an orchestra to function as a collective.

The demand seems to be aimed more at breaking up the inertia of the music business. Some even call for quota regulations.

Of course I understand the demand, I took social history subjects myself during my studies in America and, among other things, dealt intensively with the topic of institutionalized racism. In very heavily exposed societies, a quota is actually needed to overcome the disproportion. As part of the festival, we now want to show, without a quota, what diversity can look like in practice and that there are outstanding talents who do not all come from the same corner of the world. We want to convey the positive: that such encounters and discoveries can be fun. The music world as a whole is still reacting too defensively to this awakening. Sticking stubbornly and rigidly to the tried and tested is not a concept for the future. The classics can certainly ascribe a little more courage to themselves.