VAN Magazine

Last updated
VAN
Van-logo.png
VAN Magazine Logo
Editor in ChiefHartmut Welscher
Categories Classical music
FrequencyWeekly
PublisherVAN Verlag GmbH
Founder
  • Ingmar Bornholz
  • Hartmut Welscher
First issue2016
Country
  • Germany
  • United States
Based in Berlin
Language
  • English
  • German
Website

VAN is an online independent magazine devoted to classical music. Published weekly in German and English, it launched in January 2016, styling itself as "a fanzine for music lovers, music professionals and followers of the arts." Its name comes from the surname of Ludwig van Beethoven.

Contents

Unlike many other classical music publications, such as Gramophone, Opera News, and Das Opernglas, VAN caters to a younger audience of classical music fans and professionals. Its focus on news and stories that center on non-mainstream voices, perspectives, and stories within classical music has earned it comparisons to Pitchfork . [1]

VAN first received international attention in February, 2016, when its interview with Austrian composer Georg Friedrich Haas was written about in The New York Times. [2] It was the first time that Haas had, in his words, "come out" as the dominant in a BDSM relationship with his wife. [3] The Haas interview was also referenced in a Quartz article on BDSM and creativity. [4] Later that year, New Yorker music critic Alex Ross wrote that the magazine had "rapidly established itself as a venue for unfettered music writing." [5]

Other VAN interviews and reported pieces have informed pieces in the New York Times, [6] [7] The Guardian, [8] The Washington Post, [9] Forbes, [10] the New Yorker [11] , the Los Angeles Times, [12] the Boston Globe, [13] Slate, and Pitchfork. Several pieces written for VAN are listed as sources in the textbook Classical Concert Studies: A Companion to Contemporary Research and Performance. [14] The popular literary website Longreads cited two of the magazine's essays as explorations that allow readers to "hear the music, and think of [classical music's] culture, differently, too." [15]

In 2018, VAN partnered with music publisher Ricordi for the Ricordilab program for emerging composers, a three-year mentorship and career program. [16] In 2020, VAN announced the inaugural Berlin Prize for Young Artists, a competition for early-career musicians that judged based on both artistic vision/curation and performing talent and technique. The magazine would curate the prize in partnership with Swiss bank Julius Baer. [17] A documentary featuring five of the six finalists, filmed at the Elbphilharmonie in Hamburg, was released in the summer of 2020. [18]

Notable stories and contributors

VAN has published breaking news around topics including alleged professional and sexual misconduct at the Juilliard School of Music, the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, Badisches Staatstheater in Karlsruhe, Germany and the University of Texas at Austin's Butler School of Music, as well as allegations of professional misconduct by conductor and music director Daniel Barenboim. It has also reported on the ongoing allegations of misconduct against James Levine both in the US and Germany. It has published interviews with Teju Cole, Laurie Anderson, Barbara Hannigan, Mahan Esfahani, András Schiff, Angela Gheorghiu, Davóne Tines, Claire Chase, Anna Thorvaldsdottir, Peter Eötvös, and Elina Garanca.

VAN has published essays and features written by Haas, cellist Matt Haimovitz, author and former Leonard Bernstein assistant Craig Urquhart, ABC News's Alexandra Svokos, The Paris Review's Helena de Groot, Kenji Fujishima, critic and librettist Olivia Giovetti, musicologist and Jeopardy! contestant Linda Shaver-Gleason, and Belarusian conductor Vitali Alekseenok.

Daniel Barenboim reporting

VAN's style of reporting is characterized by stories that go beyond the traditional purview of legacy classical music publications. In 2019, VAN broke news of conductor and music director Daniel Barenboim's alleged professional misconduct, characterized across interviews with past and current employees as "authoritarian, mercurial, and frightening" behavior. Allegations of his misconduct included two separate incidents where he purportedly "grabbed and [shook] members of his staff in anger." The Columbia Journalism Review called the report "groundbreaking," and linked VAN to a vanguard of classical music journalism that expanded focus from performance and technique to issues of representation, interpersonal and global politics, and workplace culture. [1]

Mahan Esfahani controversy

In 2017, VAN published an interview with Iranian-American harpsichordist Mahan Esfahani wherein he said that he felt the harpsichord was becoming a tool of nationalism. Of one competition in Bruges, Esfahani said: "If you did not adhere to a certain strain of performance style associated with the historical performance movement, criticism was cast in specifically nationalistic terms." This prompted a rebuttal from fellow harpsichordist Andreas Staier (also published in VAN) that led to a public row covered particularly in the UK press. [19] Writing for The Spectator, critic Damian Thompson called the behavior "potentially damaging [for Esfahani's] international career." [20] Writer Norman Lebrecht responded in defense of Esfahani. [21]

Daniel Hope incident

In the winter of 2017–2018, composer, curator, and VAN contributor Arno Lücker published a video (on his own blog) featuring violinist Daniel Hope set to a different track of a badly-played violin, an example of "shred" videos (a popular meme at the time that featured well-known musicians re-dubbed with deliberately bad performances). Hope's lawyers sent a cease-and-desist which resulted in the video being removed. Lücker reported additional legal threats from Hope, as well as professional repercussions that included his contract with the Berliner Konzerthaus (where he freelanced as a moderator and where Hope also worked as a curator) being terminated after Hope sent the video to the hall's artistic director. [6] [22] VAN's report of the situation was described by the New Yorker as "bizarre [and] chilling," and was additionally referenced in the incident's international coverage. [23] [24] [25]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Violin Concerto (Beethoven)</span> Concerto composed by Beethoven in 1806

The Violin Concerto in D major, Op. 61, was written by Ludwig van Beethoven in 1806. Its first performance by Franz Clement was unsuccessful and for some decades the work languished in obscurity, until revived in 1844 by the then 12-year-old violinist Joseph Joachim with the orchestra of the London Philharmonic Society conducted by Felix Mendelssohn. Joachim would later claim it to be the "greatest" German violin concerto. Since then it has become one of the best-known and regularly performed violin concertos.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Anne-Sophie Mutter</span> German violinist (born 1963)

Anne-Sophie Mutter is a German violinist. Born and raised in Rheinfelden, Baden-Württemberg, Mutter started playing the violin at age five and continued studies in Germany and Switzerland. She was supported early in her career by Herbert von Karajan and made her orchestral debut with the Berlin Philharmonic in 1977. Since Mutter gained prominence in the 1970s and 1980s, she has recorded over 50 albums, mostly with the Deutsche Grammophon label, and performed as a soloist with leading orchestras worldwide and as a recitalist. Her primary instrument is the Lord Dunn–Raven Stradivarius violin.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Arabella Steinbacher</span> German classical violinist

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Rachel Barton Pine</span> American violinist (born 1974)

Rachel Barton Pine is an American violinist. She debuted with the Chicago Symphony at age 10, and was the first American and youngest ever gold medal winner of the International Johann Sebastian Bach Competition. The Washington Post wrote that she "displays a power and confidence that puts her in the top echelon."

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Peter Watchorn</span> Australian-born harpsichordist (born 1957)

Peter Watchorn is an Australian-born harpsichordist who has combined a virtuosic keyboard technique, musical scholarship and practical experience in the construction of harpsichords copied from original instruments of the 17th and 18th centuries. As well as presenting many solo public performances and broadcasts of baroque keyboard music and participating in choral and orchestral performances, he has made numerous commercial CD recordings of solo harpsichord music from the 17th and 18th centuries.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Minuets in G major and G minor</span> Composition by Christian Petzold, formerly attributed to Bach

The Minuets in G major and G minor, BWV Anh. 114 and 115, are a pair of movements from a suite for harpsichord by Christian Petzold, which, through their appearance in the 1725 Notebook for Anna Magdalena Bach, used to be attributed to Johann Sebastian Bach. These minuets, which are suitable for beginners on the piano, are among the best known pieces of music literature. The 1965 pop song "A Lover's Concerto", of which millions of copies were sold, is based on the first of these Minuets.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Kinan Azmeh</span> Syrian musician (born 1976)

Kinan Azmeh, is a Syrian clarinet player and composer of contemporary classical music based in New York City. Performing with orchestras such as the New York Philharmonic, the Seattle Symphony, the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, the West–Eastern Divan Orchestra, or the Syrian Symphony Orchestra, he has played as a soloist of classical works as well as of contemporary compositions.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ray Chen</span> Taiwanese-Australian violinist (born 1989)

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Daniel Hope</span> South Africa born classical violinist

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mahan Esfahani</span> Musical artist

Mahan Esfahani is an Iranian-American harpsichordist.

The International Classical Music Awards (ICMA) are music awards first awarded 6 April 2011. ICMA replace the Cannes Classical Awards formerly awarded at MIDEM. The jury consists of music critics of magazines Andante, Crescendo, Fono Forum, Gramofon, Kultura, Musica, Musik & Theater, Opera, Pizzicato, Rondo Classic, Scherzo, with radio stations MDR Kultur (Germany), Orpheus Radio 99.2FM (Russia), Radio 100,7 (Luxembourg), the International Music and Media Centre (IMZ) (Austria), website Resmusica.com (France) and radio Classic (Finland).

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Antje Weithaas</span> German violinist

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Claude Mercier-Ythier</span> French harpsichord manufacturer (1931–2020)

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References

  1. 1 2 "Listen with Me". Columbia Journalism Review. Retrieved 2020-10-21.
  2. ↑ Woolfe, Zachary (2016-02-23). "A Composer and His Wife: Creativity Through Kink (Published 2016)". The New York Times. ISSN   0362-4331 . Retrieved 2020-10-19.
  3. ↑ "Decades". VAN Magazine. 2016-02-04. Retrieved 2020-10-19.
  4. ↑ MacLellan, Lila. "Kinky sex lifts our consciousness into a heightened state of "flow," according to a new study". Quartz. Retrieved 2020-10-19.
  5. ↑ "Music as a weapon". Alex Ross: The Rest Is Noise. Retrieved 2020-10-19.
  6. 1 2 Cooper, Michael (2018-01-19). "Can Classical Music Take a Joke? A Violinist Is Shredded (Published 2018)". The New York Times. ISSN   0362-4331 . Retrieved 2020-10-19.
  7. ↑ Allen, David (2020-03-20). "A Composer Finds the Old in the New". The New York Times. ISSN   0362-4331 . Retrieved 2020-10-19.
  8. ↑ Cooke, Rachel (2019-06-01). "Mahan Esfahani: 'I wanted to try this harpsichord thing'". The Observer. ISSN   0029-7712 . Retrieved 2020-10-19.
  9. ↑ Midgette, Anne (2017-12-14). "Perspective | Institutions raced to dump James Levine. They should look hard at themselves". Washington Post. ISSN   0190-8286 . Retrieved 2020-10-19.
  10. ↑ Laurson, Jens F. "Trouble In Berlin: Whatever You Do, Don't Make A Shred Video Of Superstar Violinist Daniel Hope". Forbes. Retrieved 2020-10-19.
  11. ↑ Robin, William. "What Du Yun's Pulitzer Win Means for Women in Classical Music". The New Yorker. Retrieved 2020-10-19.
  12. ↑ "Essential Arts & Culture: MOCA mum on its future, Bowie ballet tribute, Coachella art tower". Los Angeles Times. 2018-04-14. Retrieved 2020-10-19.
  13. ↑ Weininger, David (9 January 2020). "Patricia Kopatchinskaja is tired of classical music's 'institutional inertia'". The Boston Globe. Retrieved 2020-10-19.
  14. ↑ Tröndle, Martin (2020). Classical Concert Studies: A Companion to Contemporary Research and Performance. Routledge. ISBN   978-1000171709.
  15. ↑ "Removing Beethoven's Wig: A Classical Music Reading List". Longreads. 2020-07-15. Retrieved 2020-10-21.
  16. ↑ "Ricordi Berlin Continues Composer Competition ricordilab". BroadwayWorld.com (in German). Retrieved 2020-10-19.
  17. ↑ "Berlin Prize for Young Artists". Global Foundation for the Performing Arts. Retrieved 2020-10-19.
  18. ↑ Hamburg, Radio. "Elbphilharmonie Konzertkino so groß wie noch nie". Radio Hamburg (in German). Retrieved 2020-10-19.
  19. ↑ Cooke, Rachel (2019-06-01). "Mahan Esfahani: 'I wanted to try this harpsichord thing'". The Observer. ISSN   0029-7712 . Retrieved 2020-10-21.
  20. ↑ "Period Drama". www.spectator.co.uk. Retrieved 2020-12-10.
  21. ↑ "In Defence of Mahan Esfahani". www.spectator.co.uk. Retrieved 2020-10-21.
  22. ↑ Laurson, Jens F. "Trouble In Berlin: Whatever You Do, Don't Make A Shred Video Of Superstar Violinist Daniel Hope". Forbes. Retrieved 2020-10-21.
  23. ↑ Germany, Stuttgarter Nachrichten, Stuttgart. "Daniel Hope und das Shred-Video: Klassik lacht nicht". stuttgarter-nachrichten.de (in German). Retrieved 2020-10-21.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  24. ↑ Germany, Stuttgarter Zeitung, Stuttgart. "Daniel Hope und das Shred-Video: Klassik lacht nicht". stuttgarter-zeitung.de (in German). Retrieved 2020-10-21.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  25. ↑ Rundfunk, Bayerischer (2018-01-22). "Daniel Hope - Streit um Internet-Video: Friede! | BR-Klassik". www.br-klassik.de (in German). Retrieved 2020-10-21.
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