German award for Venezuela resistant

German award for Venezuela resistant

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norman lebrecht

October 16, 2017

The Venezuelan-born pianist Gabriela Montero, a persistent critic of the Caracas regime, has been honoured with the 2018 Heidelberg Spring music prize.

The prize money is 10,000 Euros.

Comments

  • Anon says:

    Congratulations to her. She is a critic, but not a resistant, since such definition is usually reserved for people inside the country who not only do the talk, but also do the walk.

    • Sam says:

      Really, ANON?

      In the last week alone, she has spoken and played at both the Václav Havel-founded “Forum 2000 Foundation” in Prague and at the Organization of American States in Washington DC, wrapping both commitments around her concert schedule.

      There are many ways to “walk the walk”, not least by being the public face of a powerful resistance movement outside the country whose relentless work has lead to concrete measures, like the implementation of sanctions on the criminals who have destroyed her country, the same criminals who stole yet more so-called “elections” yesterday against overwhelming opposition…

      • Anon says:

        I’m afraid the ‘powerful resistance movement outside the country’ you mention is nothing but the old blood&oil money that wants to get back into Venezuela by all means, CIA experience in South America included.
        A few useful idiots like Gabriela Montero are most welcome as poster girls. Sometimes it’s lose-lose apparently, having the choice between pest or cholera only. A better third way apparently not being an option.

      • Veronica Gomez says:

        Oh, please, the ego! Now Gabriela is “the public face of a powerful resistance movement”? There are tens of thousands of Venezuelans outside Venezuela working to denounce the Maduro regime. Gabriela is just one of them. Anyone who is not involved in classical music (basically hundreds of millions of people throughout the world) would have no idea of who Gabriela Montero is. Sorry for the rant, but I am really bored of her ego and how her husband Sam McElroy plugs her here all the time.

        • Ernest says:

          I can not understand how anybody has the nerve , audacity to attack a personality such as Ms Montero. It is so easy to talk about ego, to destroy, to put down, to criticized a person that has so much honesty passion and love in her work: Gabriela Montero is without doubt one of the best musical personalities of our times!!
          The entire world knows very well what is going on in Venezuela! You have to be blind or ignorant to ignore that. Some choose to ignore because it is an easier attitude or they are afraid of loosing benefits!!
          Gabriela Montero has no ego but a Heart that feels n hurts for what is happening in her country and to her people!
          Nothing wrong going around the world expressing with words and MUSIC what is in her heart! She is loved for who she is, down to earth woman, honest inside out, caring , loving.
          It is so easy to criticized. Please be constructive and be positive about things.
          Montero is an idealistic positive woman with the COURAGE to say what is right. She can express it with words as a woman and with Music as a great Artist !

  • Analeck Kram-Hammerbauer says:

    Is there a word in English called “back-seat driver”?

    • Pianofortissimo says:

      “Backseat driver”, maybe?

      • Antonio says:

        Gabriela is not a “front” for anyone. She is a Venezuelan patriot, elevating world knowledge about a regime that for two decades has been destroying her Country . Un precedent hunger, lack of medicines, hospital equipment and lack of transportation fuels have turned the life of all Venezuelans into s daily hell. During PEACEFUL protests the criminal , cleptocratic narco- Government has lill d over 100 students and tortured and jailed many others. Gabriela, endangering her own life and professional career has been a spokesperson of the pressed and suffering people of Venezuela. Big congratulations to her.

  • Carlos says:

    Ever since going public on her opposition to the Venezuelan regime and especially after she expressed her criticism of Gustavo Dudamel’s and El Sistema’s perverse alliance with that criminal regime Gabriela Montero has, unsurprisingly, been the target of furious attacks both from supporters of GD and El Sistema and H.Chávez and N.Maduro. She has been accused of acting out of ego (read Verónica Gómez above) and of being driven by ulterior motives supposedly to boost her musical career. Both accusations (especially the latter) seem to me absolutely ridiculous; had she been acting on personal interests, namely boosting her own career, she would have jumped at the opportunity presented to her years ago when she was offered by El Sistema (actually Mr.Abreu himself) to appear with the Simón Bolívar Orchestra on their world tours. No doubt she would have been an additional and important attraction to those tours and would have earned a lot of money and recognition and yet she said NO out of principles. What I see is a person absolutely and genuinely commited to a cause she believes in and who has decided to put her international exposure at the service of that cause putting herself and her career at risk, not the other way around. As for Anon’s rantings on “blood&oil money”, the CIA, etc, all I can say is that he sounds just like any of Mr.Maduro’s spoke-persons, those who call Venezuelan opposition “fascists”, protesting students an instrument of imperialism and so on and so on. Impossible to take him (or her) seriously, especially when writing protected behind anonimity.

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