“John Eliot Gardiner shares the concerns of many leading lights in the music industry that European musicians coming to Britain may need visas and work permits once it leaves the European Union as expected in 2019,” writes Florence Biedermann in Friday’s (4/7) Agence France Presse. “A pioneer of Britain’s Baroque music revival going back to the 1960s, Gardiner is also an accomplished farmer and fears that Brexit will usher in genetically modified crops from the United States. ‘Brexit will have a bad impact on my activity,’ the 73-year-old told AFP as he prepares for a series of performances celebrating his lifelong love for Italian composer Claudio Monteverdi’s music. ‘I am extremely worried,’ he said … On Monday, Gardiner and his Monteverdi Choir and Orchestras will be in Aix-en-Provence in southern France to celebrate the 450th anniversary of the hugely influential composer’s birth, kicking off a tour that will end in the United States in October. … ‘Monteverdi to me is the beginning of everything,’ he said, describing him as ‘the forefather of all the great music that followed over the next four centuries.’ ”
Posted April 7, 2017
