Mauceri - For the Love of Music

John Mauceri is a protégé of Leonard Bernstein so no wonder I resonated (no musical pun intended) to For the Love of Music (2019). This book falls at the intersection of leadership and creativity, a place that has become infinitely more critical in the 21^st century. Mauceri provides background on what Western classical music includes, addresses why it is important to the human condition, and invites readers to explore it more deeply through study and concert attendance.

Music of all sorts (i.e. jazz, folk, world, rock-and-roll) can be embraced at many different depths. One of the most important things for advocates of any type of music to do is to invite family, friends, and colleagues into enjoying it without arrogance of culture or training and with an open mind. Mauceri unapologetically defines “Western music” as being derived from the Western cultural cannon, which began in early Greco-Roman civilizations as one of the four quadrivium of knowledge. Mauceri further distinguishes Western classical music as the music most often performed in concert halls that was composed, and came to prominence, in the 250 years from early 18^th to mid 20^th centuries. He says that this music “celebrates community, nature, humanity’s aspirations, triumphs, and foibles, and our desire to apply form to chaos” (Introduction, locator 108). Most composers who we now view as part of the Western classical tradition are chronologically bracketed between the births of Bach and Handel in 1685 and concluding with the death of Richard Strauss in 1949. The only exceptions were Gustav Mahler (1860-1911) and Sergie Rachmaninoff (1873-1943) who were eschewed for different reasons in their own days but in the 20^th century were fully embraced in the Western classical canon.

Mauceri makes particular note of his early experiences with classical music and suggests that others' first encounters are pivotal in their appreciation of classical music. This is certainly my case in that my first vinyl LP records were of Tchaikovsky’s Piano Concerto No. 1 and Ravel’s Bolero. These two pieces are time stamped for me at age 10 when I first encountered them. I will always carry the people, places, and experiences related to these compositions with me as I engage and interpret the world around me. Although the setting may change and our understanding of a piece of music change over time, “our relationship with music is a relationship with an eternal and necessary unifying force” (locator 821).

Music is a unifying force for a variety of reasons but one is that, while compositions are unique, they share a number of common structures. It is these structures that offer just enough familiarity for listeners to be able to move from one piece to another while feeling somewhat “at home” with what they hear. Mauceri provides some basic insight into these structures including key structures, rhythm, melody, and overall compositional form. The creativity with which these structures are used is what causes listeners to resonate with them and sometimes the structure is quite compelling – for example the rhythmic persistence in Ravel’s “Bolero” or the upside down variation no. 18 of Rachmaninoff’s “Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini.”

Mauceri says that, “classical music is bound up in humanity’s desire to tell its stories through symbols” (locator 389). Although the Western classical canon is heavily dominated by men of Astro-German heritage, their compositions clearly tapped much broader cultures than just central Europe. And the Western classical canon includes a few female composers (many of them married to men whose names are more commonly known to us today) and extended to American composers such as George Gershwin, Aaron Copeland, and Leonard Bernstein. These three Americans were most appreciated for their incorporation of diverse musical languages into their compositions with African American, Jewish American, and native peoples most notable. Some classical music was composed to simply create something beautiful but other compositions were designed to communicate a specific message. Regardless of the purposefulness of the message, a listener’s appreciation is always enhanced by understanding the historical, social, and other context of the time when the composer conceived the piece. Here again, some compositions came quickly to their composers and others took years of labored inspiration or were part of a long sequence of compositions where questions of life and existence were explored through multiple musical lenses.

One of Mauceri’s most important messages is that classical music should never be portrayed or perceived as throwing up a wall to define any particular socio-economic, religious, cultural, or national group. In fact, much of classical music was composed to provide a bridge among people of all sorts. Although all compositions are created in a specific time, music is timeless as it speaks across boundaries and generations to send messages of love, warning, cataclysm, and triumph. Some pieces are short and profound (i.e. Rachmaninoff’s “Vocalise"), some melancholic (i.e. Beethoven’s “Moonlight Sonata), and others, such as the symphonies of Bruckner or Mahler, may be quite long, and some are noted for their power (i.e. Beethoven’s Symphony #9 or Shostakovich’s #5). Loving a piece of music is often a matter of personal taste, what it communicates to you, or your experience with the specific composition. Mauceri makes it clear that study and contextual understanding may be required in order to deeply know a composition but he also says that, “You should never be embarrassed to reject the music you just don’t like” (locator 495).

Coaching for cultural and organizational success

I recently returned from my first trip back to Qatar since I left in November of 2014. Five years makes an incredible difference in a country such as Qatar. Places that were a pile of dirt five years ago are now transportation hubs, plateaus for skyscrapers, and museums (pictures here include the new subway system, Lusail development, the National Museum of Qatar, and the National Library). Besides seeing how Qatar has physically changed, I renewed several treasured relationships from my years living and working at Education City. The renewal of these relationships has caused me to want to do anything I can to support Qatar’s continuing progress, especially in the higher education sector.

I’ve coached numerous candidates for posts at Education City, served as a “mindfulness” reflector for those who are presently in Doha, and advised colleagues as they’ve repatriated from working in Qatar. I awoke from a dream this morning realizing that the role I’ve played informally is probably the most important thing I can continue to do to support Qatar from afar. Thus, this post and my commitment to offer cultural and organizational coaching to anyone considering, engaged in, or sorting out their experience from Qatar.

Most of those who have worked in Qatar have had terrific experiences. And then there are those for whom it was pretty difficult, one might even say disastrous. When I look at why some people have struggled, it is easy to conclude that there are three elements that contributed to their failure – a lack of curiosity, impatience, and cultural neglect or ignorance. As positive traits, curiosity and patience are somewhat stable characteristics but cultural intelligence is clearly cultivated. The problem is that improving cultural intelligence is most easily built on a foundation of curiosity and patience. Consequently, coaching is required to call attention to the necessity of drawing on whatever curiosity and patience one has while striving to learn about and engage across cultures.

One of the biggest problems I’ve observed is that those who have been successful in higher education in Europe and the U.S.A. often have a sense of superiority that results in arrogance and unresponsiveness to working in Qatar. I was very lucky during my days in Qatar because I reported to a Qatari national who was thoughtful and patient with me and I also had a number of Qatari colleagues from whom I could seek advice. In essence, I was enveloped in the cultural context and this was immensely helpful during the steepest portion of my learning curve. I might add that the learning curve never ceased; it continued until the day I left Qatar. The bottom line is really quite simple – I tried to engage with humility, which allowed for constant learning and set the stage for me to acquire knowledge about the cultural context and how that impacted the organization climate in which I worked.

Qatar is deceiving in a number of very important ways. To begin with, Qatar looks amazingly contemporary and westernized, leading to some expatriates assuming that they can simply drop in and expect to be successful based on past experiences. Assuming easy transference of skills and insights that have made educators successful in western settings is actually a vestige of colonialism. The new era of colonialism now underway is similar to the colonialism of 200 and more years ago – it neglects and actually seeks to extinguish what is unique about the culture where colonizers go. This view demeans the local culture. Especially in the case of Qatar, a country that exhibits both a strong commitment to modernization and a desire to retain its own local culture, the superiority and disrespect of colonizers' views are a recipe for failure. In addition to the external appearance of westernization that occurs along side the preservation of local culture, other complexities exist in relation to; western (i.e. U.S.A. and European) entities undertaking work that interfaces with Arab and Islamic based organizations, the diversity of the work force that proscribes specific functions to different cultural groups, and the dynamics of growing pluralism in the views of Qatari citizens themselves. The confluence of these factors requires a highly nuanced awareness of how to engage with and work across difference, which in turn requires the use of a cultural lens in practically every interaction.

Considering the profound changes that occurred in my life as a result of living/working in Qatar, the least I can do is offer my perspective through whatever means I can to urge those visiting and working in Qatar to acquire and enhance their cultural understanding and dexterity. I have done this through several publications in the last five years and will continue to do so in writing and in informal and formal networks. My goal is to encourage cultural understanding/respect and to cultivate habits in colleagues and acquaintances of curiosity, patience, and cultural intelligence that will help them be more successful.