Elena Dubinets, artistic director of the London Philharmonic Orchestra.
In Friday’s (7/12) Gramophone (U.K.), James Jolly writes, “Someone once said that orchestras should be both museum and contemporary art gallery … Elena Dubinets, the Artistic Director of the London Philharmonic Orchestra, reminds me of this adage when I suggest that it would be perfectly possible, and probably economically viable too—though far from healthy—for an orchestra to perform music only composed before 1950…. ‘But we have to do both. And if we don’t do the experimental stuff, our art form is going to die because our younger audiences might be interested in something else other than another Beethoven Ninth, or in interpreting it differently. And so this is what we intentionally do every season. We bring some new element into the classical tradition. We are trying to expand the classical music canon.’ I’d last encountered Dubinets when the Seattle Symphony was voted our Orchestra of the Year in 2018 and, as the ensemble’s Vice President of Artistic Planning and Creative Projects, she made the journey to London to attend the ceremony. Born in Moscow, where she also studied (Moscow Conservatoire), she has published five books … and her academic credentials are supported by a proven track record ‘on the ground.’ ” Read Dubinets’ “Listening to Ukraine” article in Symphony.
