The ARC Ensemble in Pro Musica Hebraica’s Fall 2010 Concert. (click to enlarge)
The Globe and Mail reports on plans by the Toronto-based Royal Conservatory of Music to establish an institute to help retrieve suppressed works:
“It’s striking to me how much of this music is simply unknown and unexplored,” says Simon Wynberg, artistic director of the RCM’s ARC Ensemble, which over the past decade has championed works by suppressed composers through concert tours and recordings, two of which were nominated for Grammy awards…..
Ideally, the institute, which Wynberg expects to open “within six to 12 months,” would help uncover works that could be revived and performed by opera companies, orchestras and chamber groups such as the ARC Ensemble…..
“There are people who have dedicated their lives to this, and who are eminent musicologists, and who feel that they’re only scratching the surface,” he notes…..
RCM’s institute would identify and finance projects that need financial help, based on recommendations from an expert international panel.
“You really have to play these works for the public for them to realize what happened,” says Wynberg. ARC’s Grammy-nominated 2006 recording of music by Polish composer Mieczyslaw Weinberg was followed by a spate of new recordings by other musicians of the composer’s works, he notes.
The institute’s annual budget would be around $500,000 with around $120,000 dedicated to research.