Pianist Yuja Wang issues emotional reply ...

...after critics shame her for wearing glasses on stage

(C) by ClassicFM London

Pianist Yuja Wang shamed for wearing sunglasses on stage. Picture: Getty

By Maddy Shaw Roberts, ClassicFM London

9K

“Humiliated” after being detained at the airport, Yuja Wang says she delivered the recital in sunglasses to hide her tears.

Chinese pianist Yuja Wang has issued an emotional response, after being criticised for wearing sunglasses during a recital in Canada.

After Friday’s concert, Wang was shamed by critics for her appearance, with one classical music blogger – Norman Lebrecht, who runs Slipped Disc – labelling her “attention-seeking”.

The piano virtuoso has defended herself in an emotional response, explaining that she had been detained and subjected to “intense questioning” for over an hour at Vancouver International Airport, causing her to almost miss her recital at the Chan Centre for the Performing Arts.

She adds, in an Instagram post, that although she found the experience “humiliating and deeply upsetting”, she was determined not to let her audience down so decided to wear sunglasses to cover her “visibly red and swollen” eyes.

On 23 February, Lebrecht published a blog post quoting audience member and conductor Tania Miller, who wrote on her own Facebook page:

“Your innocent audience, some donning masks to protect themselves from the potential Coronavirus, came to be in your presence for this sold-out concert, and to hear the music and extraordinary talent that you had to share. Instead they experienced the rejection of an artist withholding the permission to share in the feeling, transcendence and the shared emotion of the beauty, joy, and humanity of music.”

Miller has since apologized for her comments.

Vivaldi’s ‘infuriating’ Four Seasons

... dropped as hold music by Government hotline

Vivaldi 'Spring' is no longer DWP's hold music. Picture: Getty

By Maddy Shaw Roberts, ClassicFM London

893

Callers waiting to speak to the Department of Work and Pensions will no longer hear music from the Baroque masterpiece, after saying they couldn’t deal... ‘Viv-al-di’ repetition.

Vivaldi’s Four Seasons has been dropped by the Department of Work and Pensions as its on-hold music, after callers said the repetitive clip was making them feel anxious. Callers waiting to speak to an adviser about a benefits problem have heard a 30-second loop of ‘Spring’, the first concerto in the great Italian composer’s masterpiece, for nearly 15 years.

But with millions of callers on hold for up to an hour, many people were hearing the clip up to 120 times in a row. One user called the DWP’s choice of music a “cruel and unusual punishment”.

“We had some feedback that the Vivaldi clip caused anxiety for claimants and in particular had an impact on autistic callers,” a DWP spokesperson said.

The Department has said ‘Spring’ will be replaced by a ‘calming’ 20-minute mix of eight unnamed musical tracks that aims to reduce callers’ anxiety by creating “a steady and neutral pace and reducing the issue of repetition”.

“We tested it with claimants in job centres and they overwhelmingly preferred it,” a DWP spokesperson said. “It was seen as more calming and peaceful and light. One person said, ‘I loved The Four Seasons, it’s a lovely piece of music’, but most preferred the new music.”

The DWP has used ‘Spring’ as its on-hold music since 2006. They called it a ‘cost-effective solution’, explaining that while the music would usually be funded by taxpayer money, they were licensed to play the Vivaldi for free.

But while the average helpline on-hold time is eight minutes, waiting times can go up to an hour. The repetitive music appears to have caused unnecessary anxiety for those calling about an often stressful matter.

“Queue times can be long, longer than the whole symphony on occasion, and callers are required to listen to the same sample, interspersed with the same recorded message, for infuriating periods of time,” it said.

“The false jollity of the piece in question, combined with the repetition involved in the short sample length, is largely at odds with the motives of people ringing the line, usually because of a problem with receipt of benefits.”