CURATION
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from this page:
by Title Holder
The Integrated Global Creative Economy
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Name:
Vivien Schweitzer
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City/Place:
New York City
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Country:
United States
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Hometown:
Mumbai/London
Current News
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What's Up?
My first book, “A Mad Love: An Introduction to Opera,” was published on September 18, 2018, and named one of the ten best books of September by the Christian Science Monitor. It was a real joy to write “A Mad Love” – a chance to share my passion for the most visceral, crazy, and emotional of art forms! Opera can be daunting and complex for newcomers, so I have endeavored to explain how music, poetry and theater fit together, to explore the genre’s most important composers and works, and to introduce some of its most influential performers. Along the way I highlight some of the opera world’s fascinating historical figures, recurring debates, and trends.
Opera is evolving and frequently surprising, and I explore the genre as the living, thriving art form it is. I discuss the operas of some dozen living composers and explore the myriad ways (from traditional to wacky) that contemporary directors stage opera. I have created a Spotify playlist to accompany the book, which begins with music composed by Monteverdi in 1607 and ends with operas written some four hundred years later. There’s no quicker way to fall in love with opera than to listen to wonderful singers perform this gorgeous music.
Life
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Bio:
I am a New York-based writer, photographer and pianist. My first book, “A Mad Love: An Introduction to Opera,” was published by Basic Books in Sept. 2018. I host and produce a podcast called “Parlando: Musical Matters with Vivien Schweitzer,” interviewing dynamic artists and administrators who are changing the narrative in classical music and opera.
As a music critic for the New York Times from June 2006 to June 2016, I wrote reviews, profiles and essays about a broad spectrum of classical, opera and world music. Some of my favorite articles include interviews with the composer Annie Gosfield, the pianist Yvgeny Kissin and the mezzo soprano Alice Coote, as well as features about the intersection of politics and music in Istanbul, the resurgence of sacred music in Caucasus Georgia, and an exploration of what makes musicians ‘ready’ to perform emotionally challenging works. My pre-pandemic opera reviews include “La Traviata,” “Turandot,” and “Siegfried” at the Metropolitan Opera, “Tosca” at Loft Opera, and “The Rose Elf,” staged in a cemetery! During the pandemic I have been writing about online opera.
I have also written many reviews and features for The Economist, including profiles of the conductors Marin Alsop and Gustavo Dudamel. I contribute regularly to the NYT obit department.
I am a classically trained pianist, have performed at venues including Bargemusic, and particularly enjoy playing chamber music and collaborating with singers.
I was born in Mumbai, am a dual American and British citizen, and grew up in London and Washington, D.C. Early in my journalistic career I worked as a copy editor and reporter for the Moscow Times in Russia, writing stories about topics including mail order brides and the challenges facing foreign missionaries. I have written about Tajikistan for CNN Traveler and New York’s Chinese diaspora for BBC Online, and reported on festivals in Mexico and Slovenia.
I am a volunteer teacher at the Center for the Integration and Advancement of New Americans (CIANA), a Queens-based nonprofit where I teach English and Civics to adult students from all over the world. Here’s an article about why this work is important to me. I also enjoy my work as as board member of Art House Astoria, a nonprofit bringing affordable music and arts education to Queens.
More
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Quotes, Notes & Etc.
“Vivien Schweitzer is also under opera’s spell, and in her delicious history, “Mad Love: an Introduction to Opera,” she regales us with all you need to know.”
—The New York Times, November 28th, 2018
“Schweitzer does a good job of explaining how the music itself works -comparisons to contemporary popular music are deftly handled and often surprisingly illuminating.”
—BBC Music Magazine, November 1, 2018
“What emerges clearly is Schweitzer’s profound passion for opera, her determination to explain the elements of the art so that others might embrace it… Affection is the subterranean river that frequently bursts through the surface to splash readers and, perhaps, convince them to put down the money for tickets.”
—Kirkus Review, June 18th, 2018.
Clips (more may be added)
The Bahian Recôncavo was final port-of-call for more enslaved human beings than any other place throughout the entirety of mankind’s existence on this planet.
Brazil absorbed over ten times the number of enslaved Africans taken to the United States of America, and is a repository of African deities now largely forgotten in their lands of origin.
Brazil was a refuge (of sorts) for Sephardim fleeing an Inquisition which followed them across the Atlantic (that unofficial symbol of Brazil’s national music — the pandeiro — was almost certainly brought to Brazil by these people).
Across the parched savannas of the interior of Brazil’s culturally fecund nordeste/northeast (where wizard Hermeto Pascoal was born in Lagoa da Canoa — Lagoon of the Canoe — and raised in Olho d’Águia — Eye of the Eagle), much of Brazil’s aboriginal population was absorbed into a caboclo/quilombola culture punctuated by the Star of David.
"Great culture is great power. And in a small world great things are possible."
The Matrix was built to open the world to Bahian musicians by opening the world to all creators.
In the Matrix you curate people (and entities) for what they do and where they do it. And they can curate you. A network is formed.
By the mathematical magic of the small-world phenomenon, everybody in the Matrix (as in human society) tends to within degrees of everybody else.
And by logical extension, the entire planet. All can (potentially) be found by everybody. QED
Recently accessed from:

"Thanks, this is a brilliant idea!!"
—Alicia Svigals (NEW YORK CITY): Apotheosis of klezmer violinists
"Dear Sparrow: I am thrilled to receive your email! Thank you for including me in this wonderful matrix."
—Susan Rogers (BOSTON): Director of the Berklee Music Perception and Cognition Laboratory ... Former personal recording engineer for Prince; "Purple Rain", "Sign o' the Times", "Around the World in a Day"
"Dear Sparrow, Many thanks for this – I am touched!"
—Julian Lloyd Webber (LONDON): Premier cellist in UK; brother of Andrew (Evita, Jesus Christ Superstar, Cats, Phantom of the Opera...)
"This is super impressive work ! Congratulations ! Thanks for including me :)))"
—Clarice Assad (RIO DE JANEIRO/CHICAGO): Pianist and composer with works performed by Yo Yo Ma and orchestras around the world
"We appreciate you including Kamasi in the matrix, Sparrow."
—Banch Abegaze (LOS ANGELES): manager, Kamasi Washington
"Thanks! It looks great!....I didn't write 'Cantaloupe Island' though...Herbie Hancock did! Great Page though, well done! best, Randy"
"Very nice! Thank you for this. Warmest regards and wishing much success for the project! Matt"
—Son of Jimmy Garrison (bass for John Coltrane, Bill Evans...); plays with Herbie Hancock and other greats...
Ground Zero for the project was the culture born in Brazil's quilombos (in Angola a kilombo is a village; in Brazil it is a village either founded by Africans or Afro-Brazilians who had escaped slavery, or — as in the case of São Francisco do Paraguaçu below — occupied by such after abandonment by the ruling class):

...theme for a Brazilian Matrix, from an Afro-Brazilian Mass by
Milton Nascimento
I opened the shop in Salvador, Bahia in 2005 in order to create an outlet to the wider world for magnificent Brazilian musicians.
David Dye & Kim Junod for NPR found us (above), and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar (he's a huge jazz fan), David Byrne, Oscar Castro-Neves... Spike Lee walked past the place while I was sitting on the stoop across the street drinking beer and listening to samba from the speaker in the window...
But we weren't exactly easy for the world-at-large to get to. So in order to extend the place's ethos I transformed the site associated with it into a network wherein Brazilian musicians I knew would recommend other Brazilian musicians, who would recommend others...
And as I anticipated, the chalky hand of God-as-mathematician intervened: In human society — per the small-world phenomenon — most of the billions of us on earth are within some 6 or fewer degrees of each other. Likewise, within a network of interlinked artists as I've described above, most of these artists will in the same manner be at most a handful of steps away from each other.
So then, all that's necessary to put the Brazilians within possible purview of the wide wide world is to include them among a wide wide range of artists around that world.
If, for example, Quincy Jones is inside the matrix, then anybody on his page — whether they be accessing from a campus in L.A., a pub in Dublin, a shebeen in Cape Town, a tent in Mongolia — will be close, transitable steps away from Raymundo Sodré, even if they know nothing of Brazil and are unaware that Sodré sings/dances upon this planet. Sodré, having been knocked from the perch of fame and ground into anonymity by Brazil's dictatorship, has now the alternative of access to the world-at-large via recourse to the vast potential of network theory.
...to the degree that other artists et al — writers, researchers, filmmakers, painters, choreographers...everywhere — do also. Artificial intelligence not required. Real intelligence, yes.
Years ago in NYC (I've lived here in Brazil for 32 years now) I "rescued" unpaid royalties (performance & mechanical) for artists/composers including Barbra Streisand, Aretha Franklin, Mongo Santamaria, Jim Hall, Clement "Coxsone" Dodd (for his rights in Bob Marley compositions; Clement was Bob's first producer), Led Zeppelin, Ray Barretto, Philip Glass and many others. Aretha called me out of the blue vis-à-vis money owed by Atlantic Records. Allen Klein (managed The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, Ray Charles) called about money due the estate of Sam Cooke. Jerry Ragovoy (Time Is On My Side, Piece of My Heart) called just to see if he had any unpaid money floating around out there (the royalty world was a shark-filled jungle, to mangle metaphors, and I doubt it's changed).
But the pertinent client (and friend) in the present context is Earl "Speedo" Carroll, of The Cadillacs. Earl went from doo-wopping on Harlem streetcorners to chart-topping success to working as a custodian at PS 87 elementary school on the west side of Manhattan. Through all of this he never lost what made him great.
Greatness and fame are too often conflated. The former should be accessible independently of the latter.
Yeah this is Bob's first record contract, made with Clement "Sir Coxsone" Dodd of Studio One and co-signed by his aunt because he was under 21. I took it to Black Rock to argue with CBS' lawyers about the royalties they didn't want to pay (they paid).
Matrix founding creators are behind "one of 10 of the best (radios) around the world", per The Guardian.
Across the creative universe... For another list, reload page.
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