Music Festival Video Features RBG – Spectrum News NY1

NEW YORK – “I try to teach through my opinions, through my speeches, how wrong it is to judge people on the basis of what they look like.” 

That’s Ruth Bader Ginsburg in her own words, from her written work On Discrimination. The trail-blazing Supreme Court Justice died September 18 at the age of 87 after a distinguished career on the bench. 

Three months earlier, well-known violinist, conductor and Julliard School Senior Professor Lewis Kaplan asked Ginsburg to participate in an opening video for a virtual version of the Bach Virtuosi Festival he founded five years ago called “Brotherhood/Sisterhood.” It’s a project about humanity, equity, love and kindness. 

“People said, ‘Bach with Ruth Bader Ginsburg?’ And I said, ‘Yes, Bach,’ and of course, it worked,” said Kaplan, an Upper West Side resident. 

Kaplan met RBG several times over the years, and her daughter Jane Ginsburg is a family friend. Jane asked her mom if she would read the lines for the festival, and RBG agreed to do it.

“It was just perfect. It begins, ‘I tried to teach through my opinions and about the equality of all people,’ and I said, ‘Oh my God, that’s it. This is exactly what I’m talking about,'” said Kaplan, who also co-founded the Bowdoin International Music Festival in Maine and was its artistic director for 50 years. 
 

Bach Virtuosi Festival Executive Producer Brian Kaplan said he was pleasantly surprised when he found out RBG had agreed to take part in the project.

“I absolutely gasped,” he said. “My wife heard me and asked me what’s wrong, and I said, ‘It’s nothing wrong, it’s exactly what’s right.'”

Ginsburg’s words are accompanied by the music of Johann Sebastian Bach, a solo baroque flute sonata played by Emi Ferguson.

RBG’s is one of the selection of readings and speeches from renowned authors, poets and politicians in the piece, read by distinguished actors, poets and lawmakers. The project began before in-police-custody death of George Floyd, and the death of Congressman and civil rights Leader John Lewis. Because of those events, it transformed into more of a social justice piece.

As for Ginsburg’s death last month, Lewis Kaplan said, like many, he was saddened. He considered her a tremendous inspiration. 
 

“She’s exactly the same age as me, just a couple of months apart, and that will to work, to continue to do something, to do something for the world, inspired me even at my age,” he said. 

Kaplan said they are already working on next year’s festival, usually held in Portland, Maine, and hopes there can be live audiences. For now, he hopes folks will check out Brotherhood/Sisterhood on YouTube for some perspective during these turbulent times.