RSSAgreed Steve the Happy Noticer. Although I would not rule out future exchanges with John “Thanks Dad” Podhoretz escalating to flame war status.
Whose heart doesn’t pound a little faster at the mention of Samuel Coleridge-Taylor
Classical public radio program directors for a start. Over the last year, rarely does a broadcast hour go by without mention of him or William Grant Still. Following close behind in the new canon, Florence Price and Saint-Georges.
https://www.classicfm.com/composers/beethoven/roberto-blanco-wants-body-exhumed-racial-dna-test/
The classical composer who died almost 300 years ago, has been at the centre of a race debate for over a century; but does this mean we should disturb his grave?
German singer, Roberto Blanco, has called on the Mayor of Vienna to exhume Beethoven’s body for a racial DNA test.
The request is the latest in an over century old debate about the ethnicity of the German-born classical music giant. Beethoven died in Vienna in 1827, and Blanco addresses the city’s Mayor in a public YouTube video. He states his reasoning for the ask is ‘so that we can see if he looks more like you or me.’
Blanco, who is of Afro-Cuban origin, was born in Tunisia, before moving to Germany and becoming a singer in the early 50s.