Page 170 - FINAL_The Sixteen Coverage Book 40th Anniversary Year

When you look back on your own career you will remember the people who gave
you a break, and you must show faith in that.”

In money terms, Studzinski concedes that philanthropy comes in waves,

dependent on the economic climate, but insists that should not just be a matter of
cheque-writing, and that developing trust in the people he works with is just as
essential.

He also gives of his own time at the highest level of government in the UK,
although the most recent changes in the elected members holding some of those
jobs have happened since he spoke to The Herald. He was a key voice in the

framing of the Modern Slavery Act in Theresa May’s administration, as a non-
executive director at the Home Office, and a co-founder of Human Rights Watch.

He sees a clear responsibility for business in these issues, with human trafficking
as much of an issue in the US as the emerging world, and closely linked with
organised crime.

Although Studzinski says that philanthropists absolutely must leave artists to get
on with their own work and not interfere with the process of creation, he is
nonetheless happy to take credit for initiating that process in particular instances

of the partnership with MacMillan and The Sixteen.

His commissioning of the composer’s Stabat Mater, premiered by The Sixteen to
huge acclaim in 2016, began with Studzinski hearing the setting of the same text

by Rossini in Salzburg and disliking the experience. He asked Harry Christophers
about other more modern settings of this text about the suffering of the Mother
of Christ that was so essential to earlier composers, and saw a gap that needed to

be filled, with MacMillan clearly the man for the job.

By the same process, he discussed with the composer the comparative lack of
music celebrating the Holy Spirit, the third member of the Divine Trilogy but less

sung about than God the Father and the Passion of Jesus Christ, and that has
become the subject of MacMillan’s Symphony No.5 “Le grand inconnu”.

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