{"id":2215,"date":"2022-03-14T18:15:38","date_gmt":"2022-03-14T22:15:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/uq\/?p=2215"},"modified":"2022-03-14T18:15:41","modified_gmt":"2022-03-14T22:15:41","slug":"revueltas-and-social-justice-on-npr","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/uq\/2022\/03\/revueltas-and-social-justice-on-npr.html","title":{"rendered":"Revueltas and Social Justice on NPR"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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At the top of today\u2019s 50-minute National Public Radio feature<\/a><\/strong> on Silvestre Revueltas \u2013 the fourth radio documentary I\u2019ve produced for the WAMU newsmagazine \u201c1A\u201d \u2013 I observe:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cArt promoting social justice is everywhere upon us. It\u2019s what our composers and visual artists and playwrights want to produce, it\u2019s what presenters want to present, it\u2019s what our foundations want to fund. We all feel that we\u2019re responding to a state of emergency, especially with regard to issues of race and social justice \u2013 and that includes composer of classical music.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

You can hear it\u00a0here<\/strong>.\u00a0\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mexico, in the 1920s and \u201830s, was a place where political art flourished. The political murals of Diego Rivera, the political music of Silvestre Revueltas rose above ideology and propaganda to inspirationally define a nation. How and why that happened \u2013 and what we can learn from it today \u2013 is the topic I pursue.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019m joined by the social critic\u00a0John McWhorter<\/a><\/strong>, author of the best-selling\u00a0Woke Racism<\/em>, who warns that woke activism can diminish the arts (go to 34:50).\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

My other guests are the Mexican composer Ana Lara, the Revueltas scholars Roberto Kolb and Lorenzo Candelaria, the historian John Tutino, and PostClassical Ensemble conductor Angel Gil-Ordonez. I also sample President John F. Kennedy\u2019s arts advocacy and ponder its pertinence (go to 31:50).\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For a fascinating comment on the caliber of Mexico\u2019s political leadership in the thirties \u2013 President Lazaro Cardenes possessed a singular cultural\/educational vision \u2013 go to 23:30.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

My final thoughts, at the end of the show: \u201cI\u2019m reminded that William Faulkner had something pretty harsh to say in 1958. Faulkner wrote: \u2018The artist has no more actual place in the American culture of today that than he has in the American economy of today, no place at all in the warp and woof, the thews and sinews, the mosiac of the American dream.\u2019 President Kennedy was responding to the estrangement of American artists like Faulkner . . . Do the American arts, can the arts inspire social justice \u2013 can they help refresh American identity? Will there by an American Diego Rivera? Can we hope for an American Silvestre Revueltas?\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The show highlights a new PostClassical Ensemble Naxos CD \u2013 the world premiere recording of Revueltas\u2019s complete soundtrack to the iconic film of the Mexican Revolution: Redes (1936), unforgettably shot by Paul Strand.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Revueltas \u2013 \u201cMexico\u2019s most famous unknown composer\u201d \u2013 figures prominently in my \u201cnew paradigm\u201d for American classical music, explored in my new book Dvorak\u2019s Prophecy and the Vexed Fate of Black Classical Music.<\/a><\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

To see a PostClassical Ensemble documentary film about Revueltas and Redes, click here.<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

To purchase the new CD with the complete soundtrack, click here.<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

To purchase a Naxos DVD with the complete film, click here.<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I am again indebted to 1A producer Rupert Allman and 1A host Jenn White for this generous allocation of time for an important and ambitious topic, and to my colleague Peter Bogdanoff for his invaluable technical assistance.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

At the top of today\u2019s 50-minute National Public Radio feature on Silvestre Revueltas \u2013 the fourth radio documentary I\u2019ve produced for the WAMU newsmagazine \u201c1A\u201d \u2013 I observe: \u201cArt promoting social justice is everywhere upon us. It\u2019s what our composers and visual artists and playwrights want to produce, it\u2019s what presenters want to present, it\u2019s […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-2215","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-uncategorized","7":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2QLHN-zJ","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/uq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2215","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/uq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/uq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/uq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/uq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2215"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/uq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2215\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2219,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/uq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2215\/revisions\/2219"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/uq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2215"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/uq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2215"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/uq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2215"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}