Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco was an Italian composer whose work was banned by Mussolini’s government because he was a Jew. With help from Arturo Toscanini and Jascha Heifetz, he was able to immigrate to the United States in 1939, first living in New York and then in Los Angeles. He would go on to write the film scores for more than 200 MGM movies, and his film score work is said to have been a significant influence on Henry Mancini, Nelson Riddle, Herman Stein and André Previn. Castelnuovo-Tedesco’s extensive oeuvre also includes choral music for Jewish sacred services, operas, and concertos, some commissioned by artists such as Heifetz and Gregor Piatigorsky.
Today, Castelnuovo-Tedesco is especially remembered for his exquisite compositions for guitar, many written for his friend and supporter Andrés Segovia. And that brings me to the topic of this blog.
Renata Arlotti is a young classical guitarist from Italy who has performed with major music institutions (such as the Royal Academy in London) and in prestigious music festivals throughout Europe. Her first CD was dedicated to Castelnuovo-Tedesco, and she was invited to the Italian Cultural Institute of Los Angeles (Istituto Di Cultura — Los Angeles) to perform a concert also dedicated to Castelnuovo-Tedesco.
Today she announced on Facebook that her U.S. debut is canceled because Trump’s State Department wouldn’t give her a visa. In her own words:
When I tried to get my visa to the USA, it was denied to me because last year I went to play in Tehran and took part to “Tehran Contemporary Music Festivalâ€.
Being in the category of people that went to Iran after 2011, I am now not allowed to go to the USA unless I go through an interview at the American Embassy (which is to be held in my native country, Italy, although I live in London), unless I pay 12 times more the price of a regular Visa and wait quite a few time in order to get it, provided I am successful with the interview.
As there wasn’t time enough to go through all this process and I couldn’t take a flight to Rome or Milan, the journey I was really waiting for is now not possible anymore.
The Istituto Di Cultura — Los Angeles offered her another concert date to give her time to get the visa, so the concert may yet happen, but it’s not certain.
(Update) Here’s a YouTube video of Arlotti playing a rondo by Castelnuovo-Tedesco.
I learned about the cancellation from a Facebook friend who is a grandson of Castelnuovo-Tedesco, who wrote, “My grandfather was lucky to flee fascism in Italy, and now an artist from Italy can’t come here to pay tribute to him (almost 80 years later) because of our government.”
Yep, this is happening in America.
Renata Arlotti
Very sad, and makes me ashamed of my government. But this sort of thing is not new.
After 9/11 I remember that a world famous harpsichordist (I think Trevor Pinnock) was unable to come to the USA to give a concert, as he could not get a visa in time. We live in an absurd and paranoid society.
Boy, I really and truly hate Donald Trump. He is the worst thing that ever happened to America.
Guitarists are very dangerous:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/This_machine_kills_fascists
And Tom if those git-tar folks could learn to read music they might rule the world.
Why I Finally Had to Quit Fox News – by Ralph Peters, their former strategic analyst.
This will be viewed but Trump supporters as "standing up for America ".
Oy!
tRUMP – Da man ain't got no KKKulture!
Conservatives – Da men ain't got no KKKulture ('n maybe the women don't have none neither, also too!).
All of this is a backlash from electing and reelecting our first male non-white POTUS!
Imagine the backlash after electing a white female POTUS?!
And then imagine the backlash after our first non-whIte female POTUS?!
Gay POTUS – Of either gender?!
Muslim POTUS – Of either gender?!
Hopefully, a lot of today's geezer GOPers will be looking up in their afterlives and bitching, moaning, and shrieking, as their politicians on Earth lose elections at all election.
But they're living in their own special Hell right now, as the nation grows a darker shade of pale!
I don't have much of a handle on where the culture is going. But, judging by the clickbait that the great Cyber-Algorithm tosses out, what we used to think as "culture," as opposed to popular culture, is having an increasingly hard time surviving. It's been on the ropes for quite some time. Anyone who has had an interest in serious music, literature, fine arts, etc. will be familiar with the fact that many Americans, are hostile towards that kind of culture. I find it ironic that some people who extol the virtues of western European culture, seems to have less than a nodding acquaintance with it. So when a gifted young artist like Renata Arlotti is excluded, the loss is barely recorded. If someone does call attention to it, they are dismissed as an elitist. Obviously, that's a sorry state of affairs.
One of the widest divisions that we are dealing with is a disagreement over what really makes a country great. Most of us here would probably say that it is culture, and that diversity nourishes culture. A man or woman in a MAGA hat would probably say, a strong military and the willingness to march roughshod over the ruins of other cultures. (okay, that's an unfair simplification.) There is an old quip that says, "a man wrapped up in himself makes a small package." I think you could say the same sort of thing about culture. If a culture doesn't encounter or produce new ideas, if it revolves around itself, it circles the drain.
Fascism promotes that kind of limitation, and we are skating pretty close to it.
She's clearly a terrorist, just look how she plays those minor chords!
On the plus, there’s a real chance that Laura Ingraham will be fired. Apparently most companies are still able to know the score. If her handlers can't find replacement advertisers for a “catholic” hypocrite host who prefers to mock or rationalize Christian behavior, then she’ll be following the likes of Billo, Glenno and Ailing out the door.