The Well-Tempered Ear
Ailing superstar maestro and pianist Daniel Barenboim, 80, quits longtime German opera post
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By Jacob Stockinger
Yesterday — Friday, Jan. 6, 2023 — superstar maestro and pianist Daniel Barenboim, 80, resigned his longtime post of over 30 years as director of the Berlin State Opera.
Barenboim (below) cited ill health — specifically a severe inflammation of blood vessels — as the reason for his resignation.
Local residents might recall his long tenure at the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, where many of them probably heard him conduct and perhaps even perform as a concert pianist.
Here is a long biographical entry in Wikipedia:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daniel_Barenboim
Below are links to two news articles about Barenboim’s decision.
In them you can read a lot of details about: his philosophy of interpretation; his childhood as a Jewish child prodigy in Argentina; his training and early career as both pianist and conductor; his performances with marriage to British cellist Jacqueline du Pré, who died young; his love of German music and his role in Germany’s reunification; his controversial criticism of how Israel treats Palestinians; and the orchestra and music school he co-founded with the Palestinian activist and world-famous literary scholar Edward Said.
Here is a story from British newspaper The Guardian:
And here is the story from the German broadcasting network and media conglomerate Deutsche Welle:
https://na01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.dw.com%2Fen%2Fconductor-daniel-barenboim-resigns-as-berlin-state-opera-director-over-ill-health%2Fa-63760683&data=05%7C01%7C%7Ceeb75c8f244542d0496e08daf02ed28b%7C84df9e7fe9f640afb435aaaaaaaaaaaa%7C1%7C0e%7C638086381129033294%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C3000%7C%7C%7C&sdata=qmTwyPzkWpJKfAT4ohHJVWWnISE%2BxZS%2FxuM7hrC09zQ%3D&reserved=0
Finally, here is a recent compilation video from the outstanding arts website and streaming service medici.tv to celebrate Barenboim’s recent 80th birthday. It is called “80 Minutes with the Barenboim” and it features many other classical luminaries such as Itzhak Perlman, Pinchas Zukerman and Pierre Boulez who have been vital to his life and global career.
Do you know any of Barenboim’s many recordings?
Do you have a favorite recording to recommend?
Did you ever hear Barenboim in person conduct or play the piano?
What did you think of him? Of his conducting or playing?
The Ear wants to hear.
Tags: #BerlinGermany, #BlogPost, #BlogPosting, #DanielBarenboim, #FacebookPost, #FacebookPosting, #MusicalInterpretation, #TheEar, #Wikipediabiography, #YouTubevideo, activist, Argentina, Argentine, Arts, Bach, Barenboim, Beethoven, Berlin, Berlin State Opera, biography, birthday, blog, career, Cello, Chamber music, Chicago, Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Classical music, Concert, concerto, conductor, culture, Daniel Barenboim, Edward Said, Facebook, German, Germany, global, illness, interpretation, Israel, Israeli, Israeli–Palestinian conflict, Jacob Stockinger, Jacqueline du Pré, Jewish, Johann Sebastian Bach, La Scala, life, link, Ludwig van Beethoven, Maestro, Mozart, Music, news, opera, Orchestra, Palestinian, philosophy, Pianist, Piano, Pierre Boulez, Pinchas Zukerman, Politics, poor health, prodigy, recording, share, sick, superstar, symphony, tag, The Ear, Violin, violinist, vocal music, West-Eastern Divan Orchestra, Wikipedia, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, YouTube
Classical music: Why hasn’t anyone written an opera about Martin Luther King Jr. and the civil rights movement?
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By Jacob Stockinger
Today is a federal holiday in the US: Martin Luther King Jr. Day.
And The Ear has just one question: Why hasn’t anyone yet composed an opera about MLK?
His larger-than-life existence has all the necessary operatic elements about it, from being a prisoner in jail and winning the Nobel Peace Prize to meeting with President Johnson in The White House and being assassinated while defending garbage workers in Memphis.
He took part in momentous events, some of them dramatic and violent, that involved huge masses of people.
Plus, he and his staff experienced major individual and personal conflicts.
And the cause he fought for forever altered the course of American history and the civil rights of other individuals and groups advocating women’s rights, Latino rights, gay rights and disabled rights among others.
Could it be that MLK has not been treated in an opera because the composers are white or non-American?
Who, then, could or should do it?
The contemporary American composer John Adams (below top) comes immediately to mind. He used President Richard Nixon (below bottom is a scene from “Nixon in China, as it was staged at the Metropolitan Opera); physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer and the Manhattan Project in “Doctor Atomic: to create the atomic bomb; and in the still controversial opera “The Death of Klinghoffer” the question of terrorism examined through the story of Jewish tourist Leon Klinghoffer and his Palestinian murderers, to create his successful reality-based historical operas.
So, why not Martin Luther King Jr.?
Music certainly was vital to King and his campaign.
But what hasn’t he himself been treated as the central figure of an opera?
Maybe the difficulties posed by the King estate would have something to do with it, as they did with the current movie “Selma.”
But one can’t imagine that they are insurmountable.
Anyway, tell us what you think.
Should there be an opera about Martin Luther King Jr.?
Who would be a good composer to write one?
And why do you think one hasn’t already been written? Does racism play a role?
The Ear wants to hear.
Tags: American, Arts, China, Civil and political rights, civil rights, Classical music, composer, disabled, disabled rights, Dr. Atomic, gay, gay rights, Israel, Israeli, Israeli–Palestinian conflict, J. Robert Oppenheiner, Jacob Stockinger, John Adams, Jr., Jr. Day, Latino rights, Manhattan Project, Martin Luther King, Metropolitan Opera, Music, Nixon in China, Nobel Peace Prize, opera, Palestine, Palestinian, President Johnson, reality-based, Richard Nixon, Selma, terrorism, The Death of Klinghoffer, U.S., University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Music, University of Wisconsin–Madison, White House, women, women's rights
Classical music: Here are news items. Elusive and eccentric pianist Grigory Sokolov signs with Deutsche Grammophon. Italian maestro Daniele Gatti is named director of the famed Concertgebouw Orchestra of Amsterdam. The Atlanta Symphony Orchestra remains silent and locked out. And THIS AFTERNOON is your last chance to hear the Madison Symphony Orchestra and pianist Olga Kern in an all-Russian program of Tchaikovsky, Rachmaninoff and Shostakovich.
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ALERT: Today at 2:30 p.m. in Overture Hall is the final performance of this season’s second concert by the Madison Symphony Orchestra under the baton of John DeMain. Pianist Olga Kern (below) is the soloist in Sergei Rachmaninoff‘s Piano Concerto No. 1 in F-sharp minor. Other music includes the Suite from the ballet “Swan Lake” by Peter Tchaikovsky and the Symphony No. 6 by Dmitri Shostakovich. For information about tickets, the artists and the program, visit:
http://www.madisonsymphony.org/kern
Here are reviews of Friday night’s opening night performance:
By John W. Barker of Isthmus:
http://www.isthmus.com/daily/article.php?article=43817&sid=665cd87de278be4a3d198906d0365515
By Jess Courtier for The Capital Times:
And by Greg Hettmansberger, who writes the Classically Speaking blog for Madison Magazine:
By Jacob Stockinger
The much admired but elusive, eccentric and enigmatic Russian pianist Grigory Sokolov (below) has signed up with Deutsche Grammophon and will release a live recital –- he refuses to make studio recordings – in January.
For the news plus an interesting interview and profile of Sokolov, here is a link to a story in the British magazine Gramophone. It includes some of his quirks such as not playing pianos older than five years and his specific repertoire favorites:
Italian conductor Daniele Gatti is named the new maestro of the famed Dutch Concertgebouw Orchestra in Amsterdam. He starts in 2016 and sounds like he might be quite a bit of a contrast to past Concertgebouw conductors such as Bernard Haitink. Here is a story:
The Atlanta Symphony Orchestra continues its lockout over labor disputes, thereby postponing or canceling the opening of the new season. But last weekend ASO music director Robert Spano conducted the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra in the German Requiem of Johannes Brahms.
Here is a link to a story on NPR (National Public Radio) to yet another turmoil in the world of American symphony orchestras:
Tags: "Goldberg" Variations, Amsterdam, Arts, Atlanta Symphony Orchestra, Bach, Beethoven, Capital Times, Carnegie Hall, Chamber music, Classical music, Classically Speaking, Compact Disc, Daniele Gatti, Deutsche Grammophon, Faure, Greg Hettmansberger, Grigory Sokolov, Israel, Isthmus, Italy, Jacob Stockinger, January, Johann Sebastian Bach, John Adams, John DeMain, John W. Barker, Los Angeles Times, Ludwig van Beethoven, Madison Magazine, Madison Symphony Orchestra, Mariss Jansons, Metropolitan Opera, Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra, Music, Netherlands, New York City, New York Times, Orchestra, Palestine, Palestinian, Piano, Piano Concerto No. 3 (Rachmaninoff), Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, Rachmaninoff, Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, Sergei Rachmaninoff, sonatas, terrorist, The Death of Klinghoffer
Classical music: Is “The Death of Klinghoffer” anti-Semitic, racist or pro-terrorist? Does it merit protests of and death threats to the Metropolitan Opera? Or is it a painfully realistic and human portrayal of political fanaticism and terrorism? What would Alice say? What do you say?
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REMINDER: If you can’t or won’t go hear superstar cellist Yo-Yo Ma and pianist Kathryn Stott in music by Johannes Brahms, Igor Stravinsky, Astor Piazzolla and others at their SOLD–OUT recital at the Wisconsin Union Theater TONIGHT, you can stream it LIVE and for FREE by going to this website at 8 p.m.:
http://www.uniontheater.wisc.edu
By Jacob Stockinger
Talk about mixing politics and art!
And especially at a time so close to a contemporary conflict — Hamas, Gaza and Israel — that reflects the continuing tensions, frictions and bloodshed depicted in the original art decades ago.
No wonder, then, that the Metropolitan Opera has been protested and has received death threats over the new production of American composer John Adams’ controversial reality-based opera about Israel and Palestinian terrorists called “The Death of Klinghoffer.”
Due to pressure from the pro-Israeli lobby and some Jewish groups, the opera was already canceled as part of this season’s “Live From The Met in HD” telecasts.
Both detractors and defenders of the opera are deeply displeased with the Met.
But the actual production — which has gone on without incident in other cities at other times — continues in rehearsal as it heads to its opening this Monday night. (At bottom is a YouTube video with the director, conductor and composer of “The Death of Klinghoffer.”)
Here is a story from The New York Times (Below is a photo from The New York Times by Damon Winter of actor-singers Aubrey Allicock (left) and Paolo Szot):
And here is another story from The Los Angeles Times:
And finally here is a terrific and well-balanced, well-sourced summary story, which includes an interview with librettist Alice Goodman (below) — who converted from Judaism to Christianity and is now an Episcopalian priest in England — about the opera and the protests. It was broadcast Friday on NPR (National Public Radio):
What do you think about the opera “The Death of Klinghoffer”?
Would you be a defender?
Or a detractor and protester?
The Ear wants to hear.
Tags: Alice Goodman, Arts, Chamber music, Classical music, Death of Klinghoffer, Episcopal, Episcopal Church, Igor Stravinsky, Israel, Jacob Stockinger, Jewish, Johannes Brahms, John Adams, Kathryn Stott, Live From The Met in HD, Los Angeles, Los Angeles Times, Los Angles Times, Madison, Metropolitan Opera, National Public Radio, New York City, New York Times, NPR, opera, Palestine, Palestinian, Piazzolla, terrorism, Wisconsin Union Theater, YouTube
Classical music: The Metropolitan Opera is playing out its own dramatic opera plot as it renegotiates contracts with labor unions and seeks major cutbacks. If an agreement isn’t reached, a lockout could throw off the Met’s opening for the new season. Read and hear about it in a variety of sources selected by The Ear.
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By Jacob Stockinger
The Metropolitan Opera (below top is the Met’s exterior and bottom below is the Met’s grand interior) in New York City’s Lincoln Center is playing out its own dramatic plot.
Will the outcome be tragedy?
Or farce?
Or both.
In case you haven’t heard about it, the famed Met is negotiating new contracts with its labor unions. The Met currently has a debt of $2.8 million.
According to the Met’s general director Peter Gelb (below), major reductions totaling some $30 million, in salaries are required to put the Met back on a financially sustainable course.
Those are easy words to say for Gelb, whose own salary is reported to be $1.4 million and whose tenure has emphasized extremely expensive productions that have taxed the Met’s budget.
On his behalf, Gelb also is the manager who initiated the “Met Live in HD” that have been so popular in movie theaters around the world – including the Eastgate and Point cinemas in Madison — and have generated a lot of income. (You can see the coming season in a YouTube video at the bottom, although the November broadcast of “The Death of Klinghoffer” by John Adams has been cancelled under a controversial agreement to pacify Jewish and Israeli protest groups and lobbyists who see the opera as too focused on humanizing terrorism and Palestinian terrorists, and who threatened to withdraw much needed needed underwriting for the Met.)
The original deadline for an understanding or agreement was this past Sunday. But that deadline has been extended until Tuesday, today, apparently because negotiations continued and presumably continued in a positive way, despite the appearance of an overall deadlock.
Mediators were called in and apparently an independent audit of the Met’s books is under way.
So by the end of the day we should hear more about the results –- or lack of results. That, in turn, will tell us more about the short-term future and long-term future of the Met.
Some of the best coverage of this potentially major event can be found on the Deceptive Cadence blog written by NPR (National Public Radio):
Here are some links mostly to websites for newspapers and radio. The Ear has heard NOTHING – at least nothing that I recall – on the major TV outlets and network, commercial or cable. Well, maybe they are too busy doing features about dogs and children who raise money for good causes. I am sure they have polling and surveys to back up their story selection.
To learn about the major players in the Met drama – or the Cast of Characters, so to speak, here is a story:
How the negotiations were going? Read this:
If you want an overview of the situation, try these:
And here in another selection of stories from The New York Times:
Here is the latest news from The Wall Street Journal about an independent audit of the Met’s books:
http://online.wsj.com/articles/met-operas-books-to-undergo-financial-review-1407120687
Do you have an opinion on the matter?
Given the recent bankruptcies and closings of American symphony orchestras and the City Opera of New York, what do you think the Metropolitan Opera drama signifies or means for the classical music scene in the U.S.?
The Ear wants to hear.
Tags: Amsterdam Baroque Orchestra, Arts, bankruptcy, City Opera, City Opera of New York, Classical music, Death of Klinghoffer, Israeli, Jacob Stockinger, Jewish, John Adams, LIncoln Center, Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts, Madison, Metropolitan Opera, Music, New York City, New York Times, NPR, opera, Orchestra, Palestinean, Palestinian, Peter Gelb, symphony orchestra, terrorism, terrorist, The Death of Klinghoffer, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, TV, union, United States, Wall Street Journal, YouTube
Classical music: The Ear sees blackmail, censorship, self-censorship and moral weakness –- NOT “compromise” – in the Metropolitan Opera’s decision to cancel the “Live in HD” broadcast of John Adams’ “The Death of Klinghoffer” next fall.
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By Jacob Stockinger
It sure doesn’t seem like the Metropolitan Opera (below) could or should be the hero in this opera. More like it plays the role of the bad guy, the villain.
Or is it really more of a soap opera?
In case you haven’t been following the news, the general director of the Metropolitan Opera Peter Gelb has caved in to pressure from Israeli lobbies and agreed to cancel the scheduled “Live in HD” broadcast of the opera “The Death of Klinghoffer” by the acclaimed contemporary American composer John Adams (below and at bottom in a YouTube video with the stage director of the Met’s production.)
The Ear finds that action thoroughly reprehensible.
It seems the pro-Israeli lobby thinks the opera is anti-Semitic and too kind in the way it treats the four Palestinian terrorists — from the Palestine Liberation Organizations — who in 1985 took over the luxury cruise ship the Achille Lauro and killed the disabled Jewish passenger Leon Klingerhoffer in his wheelchair and then threw him overboard.
Well, I want to tell the head honchos at the famed Met: Don’t do my thinking about terrorism and Mideast peace for me. Just give me the facts and let me make up my own mind.
I want to see art, not propaganda, which is apparently what some pro-Israeli activists think would be good for the rest of us. I think I can see tragedy where there is tragedy, whether it is Jewish or Arab tragedy, Israeli or Palestinian tragedy. Just listen to the “Night Chorus” (below) and watch the videos that go with it:
This whole affair sound more than a little to my mind like a protester who would censor William Shakespeare’s “The Merchant of Venice” or Mark Twain’s “Huckleberry Finn” in the name of a higher morality.
I say: Let us see the opera –- it is one of next season’s “Live in HD” satellite broadcasts that I would like most to attend -– and then decide for ourselves.
Stop condescending to us, stop underestimating us.
Now, one suspects that the poor finances of the Met would help to explain a lot of the shameful action. And Gelb admits that donors didn’t pressure him but that groups connected to donors did.
So here is the compromise: There will be no protesting at the actual opera production in New York City –- where tickets can run hundreds of dollars and seating is limited and most of the world cannot and will not see it — and no boycotting or withdrawing of financial support if the Met doesn’t broadcast it worldwide to a much larger audience.
I think I smell blackmail.
What do you smell?
I know I smell censorship on the part of the protesters and self-censorship of the part of the famed opera company’s administrators who caved in to their demands.
“The Death of Klinghoffer” would seem to build on the other news-based or reality-based operas of John Adams that the Met has staged and then broadcast so successfully by the Met: “Nixon in China” (below) about President Richard Nixon meeting Chairman Mao; and “Doctor Atomic,” about J. Robert Oppenheimer and the building of the first atomic bomb.
Here is a line to the story in The New York Times about the original decision:
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/18/arts/music/met-opera-cancels-telecast-of-klinghoffer.html?_r=0
And here is a link to reaction from the composer John Adams, who counters objections and make convincing points:
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/19/arts/music/klinghoffer-composer-responds-to-mets-decision.html
Here is a link to a fine critique from the longtime senior music critic for The New York Times Anthony Tommasini:
Here a link to a fine editorial that appeared in The Boston Globe:
And here is another great editorial, this one from The New York Times, which is located in a city known for its large Jewish population and, one presumes, its large body of Jewish subscribers:
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/20/opinion/the-metropolitan-operas-backward-move.html
Tags: anti-Semitic, Arab, Arts, atom bomb, Chairman Mao, China, Classical music, Death of Klinghoffer, Doctor Atomic, Huckleberry Finn, Israel, Israeli, J. Robert Oppenheimer, Jacob Stockinger, Jew, Jewish, John Adams, Madison, Mao-Zedong, Mark Twain, Metropolitan Opera, Mideast peace, Music, New York City, New York Times, Nixon in China, opera, Palestine, Palestine Liberation Organization, Palestinian, Peter Gelb, reality-based, Richard Nixon, terrorism, United States, William Shakespeare, YouTube
Classical music: A FREE Cello Choir concert will take place this Saturday night at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. It features new music and works by Villa-Lobos, Francis Poulenc, J.S. Bach, Cesar Franck, Tchaikovsky and others. Plus, hear a clip of the Fusions Continuum art music concert with cello and oud to promote understanding and peace between Israelis and Arabs.
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By Jacob Stockinger
Concerts of chamber music by the Madison-based Bach Dancing and Dynamite Society aren’t the only classical music events happening this weekend.
This week has also seen the annual National Summer Cello Institute (NSCI), which features master classes and performances plus sessions about using Feldenkrais Method and relaxation techniques to best employ one’s physical body to make music through the cello.
For more information about the Institute, here is a link to its home website:
http://www.yourbodyisyourstrad.com/main/2014_National_Summer_Cello_Institute.html
Here is a link to a previous post about the Institute on this blog:
A fine musician and good friend of the blog, Professor Uri Vardi (below) teaches cello at the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Music. Along with his wife Hagit Vardi and some others, Uri Vardi runs the NSCI and sent this message:
Dear Jake,
The 2014 National Summer Cello Institute is ending on this Saturday, June 14, with a public FREE concert in Mills Hall at 8 p.m.
The concert will include “Bachianas Brasileiras” No. 5 (with soprano Anna Whiteway, below top) and No. 1 by Heitor Villa-Lobos. Both pieces will be played by the NSCI Cello Choir, conducted by Professor James Smith (below bottom) of the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Music.
The program will also include new music: two movements of a “Requiem for 6 Cellos and Double Bass” by former NSCI participant (and future UW-Madison Master’s of Music student) Kyle B. Price in memory of his aunt Connie Barrett (a 2010 NSCI participant).
Other solo pieces are by the following composers: Francis Poulenc, Cesar Franck, Einojuhani Rautavaara, Peter Tchaikovsky, Johann Sebastian Bach and Jacques Offenbach.
I hope you will be willing to let your blog audience know about this.”
Vardi also took part this past season in a Fusions Continuum Concert that mixed the Western cello and the lute-derived Arabic oud (below) with the purpose of using different kinds of art music to promote peace and understanding between Israelis and Palestinians.
Adds Vardi: “Also, I thought you might be interested in a 17-minute YouTube clip of Fusions Continuum:”
Tags: Arab, Arabic, aria, Arts, Bach, Cello, cello choir, Cesar Franck, Chamber music, Classical music, conflict, Einojuhani Rautavaara, Feldenkrais Method, Francis Poulenc, Franck, Heitor Villa-Lobos, Israel, Israeli, Israeli–Palestinian conflict, Jacob Stockinger, Jacques Offenbach, Johann Sebastian Bach, Madison, Music, Offenbach, oud, Palestine, Palestinian, peace, Peter Tchaikovsky, Poulenc, relaxation, Requiem, Singing, song, soprano, Tchaikovsky, University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Music, University of Wisconsin–Madison, Villa-Lobos, YouTube
Classical music: A FREE “fusion” concert of Arab and Jewish art music will take place on this coming Saturday night on the University of Wisconsin-Madison campus. Plus, the students of UW tenor James Doing will perform a FREE recital of songs and arias this Thursday night at 7.
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ALERT: Tomorrow, Thursday night at 7 p.m., University of Wisconsin-Madison tenor James Doing will present another of his FREE studio recitals. It will feature 17 of his students (below, with Doing on the back row on the far right) — but this time NOT Doing himself — in various works, performed with piano accompaniment. The composers to be heard include George Frideric Handel, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Gabriel Faure, Maurice Ravel, Henri Duparc, Leo Delibes, Manuel DeFalla, Giaocchino Rossini, Vincenzo Bellini, Giuseppe Verdi, Leonard Bernstein and William Bolcom. The Ear has found such recitals in the past extremely informative and extremely enjoyable, a model of teacher-student cooperation based on a kind of master-apprentice model. Here is my review of a previous such recital:
By Jacob Stockinger
It seems to The Ear that the Israel-Palestinian conflict has lately been on the back burner for the most part, though it is heating up again as the Palestinians threaten again to go to the United Nations for official statehood recognition .
Still, that turmoil seems pretty much buried under the turmoil in Ukraine involving Russia’s annexation of Crimea; under the three week-long story of the missing Malaysian jet on its flight to Beijing; and under the tragedy of the massive and deadly mudslide near Seattle.
Add in the civil war in Syria, the student protests in Venezuela, concerns over Iran and nuclear proliferation and some African politics, and you can quickly understand why the Israelis and the Palestinians are less visible these days.
But although their disagreement may be less visible in the headlines, the Jewish-Arab problem is still there and is still urgent in its need to be solved.
After all, President Obama just returned from a trip to the Mideast where he met with to Saudi officials. And his administration continues to look for peace even as troubles from Palestinian rocket attacks to new Israeli construction on the West Bank, still plague the peace process.
So the Israel-Palestinian peace process, and the effort to secure a two-state solution, continues — or so one can hope.
With that background, it might seem that University of Wisconsin-Madison cellist Uri Vardi, who is an Israeli by birth and training, is following the current trend towards using art –- specifically music – to promote cross-cultural understanding and ultimately peace.
If that goal seems far-fetched or distant, well you might recall that world-famous conductor Daniel Barenboim has been nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize for his work with the West-Eastern Divan Orchestra that he founded with the late Palestinian literary scholar Edward Said to foster peace by bringing together Israeli and Palestinian young musicians for concerts and recordings.
And the universally acclaimed early music master Jordi Savall (below top) and his ensemble Hesperion XXI have just released to rave reviews their second CD volume of music (below bottom) that blends Arabic and European cultures.
But Uri Vardi is anything but late to the game. For almost two decades he has been promoting such international understanding and peace efforts through art for a very long time through the Fusions Continuum Project.
This Saturday night at 8 p.m. in Mills Hall, Vardi will play the cello and his friend and colleague Taiseer Elias will play the oud (below) -– a fretless, lute-like instrument that is the ancient ancestor of the guitar and of the entire string family including the violin, viola, cello and double bass.
They will be joined by pianist-composer Menachem Wiesenberg (below), who is seen performing one of his own compositions with our master Taseer Elias in a YouTube video at the bottom.
If you miss that performance, the concert will be repeated the next day, this Sunday, on “Sunday Afternoon Live From the Chazen” (below), which will be broadcast LIVE statewide on Wisconsin Public Radio from 12:30 to 2 p.m., and on Sunday night at a FREE concert in Milwaukee at 7 p.m. at the Rubinstein Pavilion, 1400 North Prospect Avenue. Then the trio will embark of a tour of the U.S.
In 2008, Vardi and Elias – an acclaimed teacher and performer in Israeli — gave the world premiere in Madison in a specially composed Double Concerto for Oud and Cello by the American composer Joel Hoffman (below). It was premiered by the Madison Symphony Orchestra under conductor John DeMain, and it is the kind of cultural crossover project that has found similar success with Yo-Yo Ma’s Silk Road Project.
Here are three links to stories about Uri Vardi and the upcoming fusion concert of Arab and Israeli music:
The first is to the shorter story on the outstanding blog “Fanfare” at the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Music:
http://uwmadisonschoolofmusic.wordpress.com/2014/03/12/acappella_taylorpiano_beatriceopera/
The second longer and more detailed story is a press release from the newsletter of the UW-Madison Department of Jewish Studies:
http://jewishstudies.wisc.edu/newsletter/winter2014/vardi/
And the third link will give you the full program:
http://jewishstudies.wisc.edu/arts/fusions/program/
What do you think of a project like this?
Can it be practical in the pursuit of peace and understanding?
Or does it remain pretty much irrelevant entertainment?
Leave your opinion in the COMMENT section of this blog.
The Ear wants to hear.
Tags: accompaniment, Arab, Arab music, aria, Arts, Bellini, Benjamin Netanyahu, Cello, Chamber music, Classical music, Compact Disc, concerto, Daniel Barenboim, DeFalla, double bass, Duparc, Early music, Faure, George Frideric Handel, guitar, Hesperion XXI, Israel, Israeli–Palestinian conflict, James Doing, Jewish, Jewish studies, Joel Hoffman, John DeMain, Jordi Savall, Leonard Bernstein, lieder, lute, Madison, Madison Symphony Orchestra, Menachem Wiesenberg, Middle East, Milwaukee, Nobel Peace Prize, opera, Orchestra, oud, Palestine, Palestinian, Palestinian people, Peace process in the Israeli–Palestinian conflict, Piano, Ravel, recital, Rossini, Silk Road, song, Sunday Afternoon Live From the Chazen, Syria, Taiseer Elias, tenor, The Silk Road Project, U.N., United Nations, University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Music, University of Wisconsin–Madison, Uri Vardi, Verdi, Viola, Violin, West Bank, West-Eastern Divan, West-Eastern Divan Orchestra, WILLIAM BOLCOM, wisconsin public radio, Yo-Yo Ma, YouTube
Classical music: NPR plays musical anthropologist and goes into the field to bring back a live recording of glam pianist Yuja Wang playing Prokofiev at the Steinway Factory in New York City.
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By Jacob Stockinger
The Ear has to hand it to NPR’s terrific classical music blog “Deceptive Cadence” and to NPR’s “All Songs Considered.”
For quite some time now, NPR has featured “Tiny Desk Concerts” — classical, jazz, folk, roots music — during which major performers play live in the crowded NPR studio. They are easy to link to and stream over your computer or maybe even your TV set these days. (NPR books great guests, including, below bottom, superstar cellist Yo-Yo Ma.)
You can also find NPR links to and archives of other live performances -– often through radios stations such as WQXR-FM in New York City and WGBH in Boston –- and include a recital of live music in major halls and venues, including one of Franz Joseph Haydn, Ludwig van Beethoven, Claude Debussy and Frederic Chopin by the acclaimed Norwegian pianist Leif Ove Andsnes at Carnegie Hall (below). And there are many, many others.
And now Deceptive Cadence seems to be acting like musical anthropologist. The time they went out “into the field” – that is, not in the usual venues and concert halls.
That’s not unheard of, of course. That is how the great composer Bela Bartok (below) started out as a musical anthropologist or ethnologist of Hungarian and Romanian folk music, and then used his research to morph into one of the pioneers of musical modernism. Chopin used Polish music like the mazurka to create a new Romanticism. And in American folk music, the musical anthropology of Alan Lomax is legendary.
Specifically, NPR went to the piano factory of Steinway and Sons in New York City and recorded the red-hot glam pianist Yuja Wang playing the fiercely difficult Toccata in D Minor, Op. 11, with all its hypnotic repetition of a single note, by Russian composer Sergei Prokofiev on a brand new Steinway concert grand. (You can see and hear it in a YouTube video at the bottom. Don’t forget to click on the icon that is second from the right to enlarge the video image to fill your computer screen.)
The music and the physical virtuosity or dexterity is amazing to behold.
It is also kind of cute and informal to watch the diminutive figure of the glamorous Wang playing difficult cert music in a cold, wood-strewn and equipment-strewn warehouse in fingerless wool hobo gloves that go up her forearm –- but only after she uses the reflective fallboard above the keys to put on glossy lipstick and so complete her outfit of black fur-like boa, black stiletto heels and geometrically high fashion black-and-white dress.
Ah! Those tribal ceremonies and native attire!
Anyway, here is a link to the performance by Yuja Wang at the Steinway and Sons factory in the borough of Queens, not the usual Steinway showroom in Manhattan where most pianists test and choose pianos for their performances.
The Tiny Desk Concerts archive has lots of kinds of live performances.
For example, here is the famed Kronos Quartet (below) doing a recent Tiny Desk Concert featuring its latest recordings. Many other such concerts by other artists have been archived and are readily accessible:
http://www.npr.org/event/music/246393060/kronos-quartet-tiny-desk-concert
And here is a link to the archive, with links to other older archives, of music Live in Performance housed at NPR. It includes chamber music, orchestral music (below is the Mideast peace-promoting Palestinian-Israeli West-Eastern Divan Orchestra under co-founder and director Daniel Barenboim in Carnegie Hall), operas and recitals:
http://www.npr.org/series/10210144/classics-in-concert/?ps=sa
Tags: Alan Lomax, All Songs Considered, anthropology, Arts, Béla Bartók, Beethoven, Boston, Carnegie Hall, Chamber music, Chopin, Classical music, Daniel Barenboim, Debussy, enthnography, Folk music, Haydn, Hungary, Israeli, Jacob Stockinger, Kronos Quartet, Ludwig van Beethoven, MANHATTAN, mazurka, New York City, NPR, opera, Palestinian, Piano, Poland, Queens, Romania, Sergei Prokofiev, Steinway & Sons, Tiny Desk Concert, toccata, Wang, West-Eastern Divan Orchetsra, WGBH, WQXR-FM, YouTube, Yuja Wang
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