The Bach Festival Society of Winter Park presents its 90th Annual Festival (Central Florida Lifestyle)
By Melissa Donovan
CENTRAL FLORIDA LIFESTYLE MAGAZINE
When John V. Sinclair, artistic director and conductor of Bach Festival Society of Winter Park thinks about classical music, he said he does not just see it as sounds of the past and the pathway to the songs we hear and love today.
He often references this excerpt from ‘Listen to This’ a book by Alex Ross when contemplating what this genre means to him:
“I hate “classical music”: not the thing but the name. It traps a tenaciously living art in a theme park of the past. It cancels out the possibility that music in the spirit of Beethoven could still be created today. It banishes into limbo the work of thousands of active composers who have to explain to otherwise well-informed people what it is they do for a living. The phrase is a masterpiece of negative publicity, a tour de force of anti-hype. I wish there were another name. I envy jazz people who speak simply of “the music.” Some jazz aficionados also call their art “America’s classical music,” and I propose a trade: they can have “classical,” I’ll take “the music.”