Concerts: Artistic Boycott

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The two college students were visitors and they wanted to hear the London Royal Philharmonic when it came to town last November. But the town was Jackson, Miss., where concerts are still segregated, and tickets are sold by subscription only—to the right people. Instead of getting into the hall, the boys landed in jail because they insisted they had a right to hear the performance. The affair was hardly noticed at the time, but by last week it had become the inspiration for a cause celebre: one after another, the nation's leading concert artists were joining a boycott of the segregated South.

The first of them to act was Pianist Gary Graffman, who canceled a February appearance in Jackson after learning of the students' arrest. His place was promptly filled by German Pianist Hans Richter-Hasser (who argued that artists should be above involving themselves in social problems), but the boycott was gathering momentum. Conductors George Szell, Leonard Bernstein and Erich Leinsdorf all announced that they would not appear before segregated audiences, and they were joined by such performers as Risë Stevens, Leon Fleisher, Jaime Laredo and Julius Katchen. Artur Rubinstein declared that such a stand is "a right and natural step."

Segregation remains the general rule for concert audiences in Mississippi and Alabama; elsewhere it is accomplished more discreetly. And much of the South is effectively ear-muffed; Rudolf Bing two years ago refused to allow the touring Met to appear before segregated audiences, and Sol Hurok, with his huge stable of artists, has had a similar policy for a decade. At week's end the new musical boycott of the Deep South was endorsed by Vladimir Horowitz. Horowitz' stand was duly reported in the press, despite its purely theoretical value—he has not played in public anywhere in eleven years.