Toronto Symphony does an “inverse private”

I’ve been reading The Haves and Have-Yachts: Dispatches on the Ultrarich, a collection of New Yorker magazine articles, in order to develop some understanding of what our neighbors down in Palm Beach go through. One chapter is devoted to “privates” in which successful music stars perform at corporate events and private parties, e.g., for a birthday or a wedding. The costs range from $250,000 to $24 million (Beyoncé in Dubai) for something that was considered shameful during the Classic Rock period. Artists who express solidarity with the 2SLGBTQQIA+ are delighted to perform in Muslim countries where homosexual acts are punishable by imprisonment or death. Artists are also happy to perform for various dictators, e.g., in Central Asia. That said, our much-loved stars do have some scruples. With the exception of some Christian bands, no artist will agree to work a Chick-fil-A corporate event.

A recent New York Times article covers a kind of “inverse private” in which the musicians stay where they normally perform and the rich douche comes to them:

The musicians of the Toronto Symphony Orchestra took their seats at Roy Thomson Hall on Wednesday for a performance of Mahler’s “Resurrection” Symphony. Then a stage door swung open, and out walked the conductor.

He was not a world-renowned maestro or even a trained musician. The man who walked out, wearing a crisp white shirt and taking the podium, was Mandle Cheung, a 78-year-old technology executive who had paid the Toronto Symphony nearly $400,000 to lead it for one night.

Cheung, a lifelong fan of classical music who played in a harmonica band in high school and has dabbled in conducting, persuaded the orchestra to allow him to act out his long-held dream of leading a top ensemble.

“I had watched the videos and heard the recordings,” Cheung, the chairman and chief executive of ComputerTalk Technology in Toronto, said in an interview. “I had seen the magic of the guy standing in front of the orchestra with a stick. So I said, ‘Why can’t I do it, too?’”

He added: “I can afford to do it, that’s the main thing. So when it came across my mind, I said, ‘Hey, maybe I should give it a try.’”

This man is my hero!

How’s the book, you might ask? There are a lot of interesting tidbits. Just be aware that it is the New Yorker and, therefore, all of the world’s ills are blamed on the existence of Republicans in general and Donald Trump in particular. Trump is mentioned roughly every three pages, despite his apparent lack of connection to any of the events chronicled. The author never explains why California is plagued by inequality, a high poverty rate, and envy given that nearly everyone there is a Democrat. If Republicans were eliminated, rich Democrats would give most of their money to social justice nonprofits and to community-building (Andrew Carnegie is cited approvingly for his funding of libraries). There would be no war (just as Andrew Carnegie prevented any wars from happening in Europe via his 1910 founding of a peace institute). The author never explains why rich Democrats can’t do all of this starting right now.