Black Lives at Lucerne Festival 2022. “Diversity” in Germanophone Switzerland

Abstract

The Lucerne Festival has taken up a leadership position in Switzerland by taking on the task of “lifting the cone of silence” of Black lives in classical and new music. This text examines the various media communications and responses to the 2022 theme “Diversity”, in particular. The author centres the
Swiss context so as to unpack how discursive regimes interact with structural antiblackness. The author reads newspaper articles, blog posts, and promotional videos and places them in conversation with a theorisation of the particular forms that antiblackness takes in Switzerland and in the classical music world. Of particular import is the question of colourblindness and its persistence in discourses, and its effects on critique, curatorial decisions, canon formation, pedagogy, and research. Ultimately, the article aims to propose new ways of thinking about and practising critique so as to move beyond currently available discourses.