Cultural Diplomacy Is In The DNA Of The Glenn Gould Foundation

When the 25 year-old Glenn Gould walked out on the stage of Moscow’s Bolshoi Hall on May 7, 1957, he became the first major Western classical artist to perform in the Soviet Union at the height of the Cold War.  He also became Canada’s first practitioner of cultural diplomacy.

Those were times of incredible international tension; a mere 6 months before, Soviet tanks had rolled into Budapest, crushing the Hungarian Uprising.  Hostilities between East and West were at a boiling point, and fears of nuclear catastrophe were widespread.

In this fraught environment, what could concerts and lectures by a piano player from Toronto accomplish?

A lot.

Glenn electrified audiences in Russia, including some of the future greats of the classical music world: Sviatoslov Richter, Vladimir Ashkenazy and Mstislav Rostropovich.  They described him as a “being from another world,” the bringer of new ideas, new concepts about music, and about freedom of thought.

The mere act of playing Bach, the most faithful and spiritual of composers, in public was unconventional and mildly subversive in a regime dedicated to materialism and officially atheistic.  But Gould went further in a lecture he gave at the Moscow Conservatory. He defied the 1948 Zdanov Doctrine, which had effectively barred much contemporary Western Art, by speaking about and performing works of the Second Viennese School:  Berg, Schoenberg and Krenek.  It was a revolutionary – or rather, a counter-revolutionary act, executed entirely on the 88 keys of a piano keyboard. Theatre director Roman Vityuk, who was present described it as “a new password for an entirely new comprehension of life . . .The Berlin Wall existed in music, too, and perhaps Gould was one of those who were trying to break down the wall.”

That’s the power of Cultural Diplomacy – “the exchange of ideas, information, art, language and other aspects of culture among nations and peoples in order to foster mutual understanding.”

Now humanity again find itself immersed in a time of upheaval, war, tension, shifting geopolitical allegiances and existential crisis. We look across a wide gulf of turmoil at the Other and see embodiments evil so undiluted as to obscure the fact that we are all of the same species, born the same way, and ultimately destined to join the throng of those who came before us and have joined the vast chorus of history. 

At such times, it’s good to remember the visionary words of John F. Kennedy in his famous “Peace Speech” – his June 10, 1964 Commencement Address at American University:

So, let us not be blind to our differences–but let us also direct attention to our common interests and to the means by which those differences can be resolved. And if we cannot end now our differences, at least we can help make the world safe for diversity. For, in the final analysis, our most basic common link is that we all inhabit this small planet. We all breathe the same air. We all cherish our children’s future. And we are all mortal.

Culture and the use of culture as a vital instrument of diplomacy has an indispensable role to play. It is a form of communication that speaks from the heart and goes out to the heart. It reminds us that we are not alone and that the Other, despite the depths of our conflicts, disagreements, and even wars, remains a human being, capable of the same pain, joy, suffering, sorrow, anger, violence, love and elation as ourselves.

Art belongs to us all, and one nation’s culture is the gift it gives to all others. This truth came home to me in a powerful way on April 16, 2019.  It was the day after the tragic fire that nearly destroyed Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris.  I was taking a taxi and asked the driver if he had heard about the fire.  He said, “I saw it, and I couldn’t believe it. You know, I’m from Somalia and I’m Muslim. I never saw that church before – I didn’t even know it existed. But when I saw it in flames, that beautiful, beautiful building, it made my heart break. I felt I lost something that belonged to me.”

If we seek peace and a better life, we need diplomacy. Those that that practice it effectively and bring about the resolution of conflict, rise in the esteem of the community of nations. Diplomacy and every other form of peace-seeking requires a language capable of building understanding, allaying hatred and  recognizing ourselves equally in our allies and our adversaries.

Art, culture and all forms of expression that arise from the root of what it means to be human is the essence of that language.

And so, we at The Glenn Gould Foundation work in our own small way to foster cultural exchange, and to reflect the fact that great artists like Glenn Gould, perhaps as much as great statesmen like Kennedy, have a role to play in illuminating the path to a more humane and hopeful future. Perhaps that is what Kennedy meant when, in another memorable address, he said,

When power narrows the areas of man’s concern, poetry reminds him of the richness and diversity of his existence. When power corrupts, poetry cleanses. For art establishes the basic human truth which must serve as the touchstone of our judgment . . .We must never forget that art is not a form of propaganda; it is a form of truth.

With those ideals in mind, we seek to be practitioners of cultural diplomacy, as Glenn Gould was. In creating The Glenn Gould Prize, we sought both to pay tribute to an extraordinary person and visionary artist, and also to create a universal platform for welcoming other artists to that pantheon – kindred spirits of Gould’s – from around the world. 

Our purpose is to honour these “living world treasures” so that they might inspire us with their insights, lift us with the beauty of their work and build the bridges of understanding and compassion among nations and cultures that the world needs today even more than when Glenn made his historic journey to Russia almost 70 years ago. 

As a proudly Canadian organization, we believe this mission to be a worthy one for our great nation to embrace as a reflection of its own most cherished values.