Page 387 - Guildhall Coverage Book 2020-21

7 January 2021

Michael White’s classical & jazz news: Wasfi

Kani; Vienna State Opera; The Met; Guildhall

School of Music

By Michael White

Wasfi Kani, who has been awarded a CBE

AS the music world has been among the hardest hit of all professions during 2020, it was good to see it properly
acknowledged in the New Year Honours list – with a knighthood for opera director Graham Vick, a damehood for
conductor Jane Glover, and assorted gongs for pianist Barry Douglas, cellist Natalie Clein and composer Julian
Anderson. All thoroughly deserved.

But one I’m particularly pleased about is the CBE for Kentish Town’s own Wasfi Kani: a formidable woman with
the energy of a volcano in eruption, whose achievements can’t be contained in a single word. All I can say is she
makes things happen. With a vengeance.

Starting out as a conductor, she created her own Pimlico Opera company which went into prisons and got
hardened villains singing Mozart – against all odds and in a way that sometimes turned their lives around.

From there she became chief executive of Garsington Opera. Then she set up Grange Park Opera, building a
new theatre in the process. Then she joined forces with the Carphone Warehouse boss David Ross to create
Nevill Holt Opera. And then she re-created Grange Park Opera on a new site, building yet another theatre. From
scratch. In less than a year.