He’s head of the Staatsoper in Berlin and music director at La Scala, not to mention musical peacemaker of the Middle East.
As of today, Daniel Barenboim is also director of the Conservatory of Music in Madrid, according to Spanish websites.
Er, apparently not quite. This is the day for Iberian leg-pulls.
28/12/2011.- El pianista y director judeo argentino español ha aceptado ponerse al frente del Conservatorio de la capital de España tras unas breves negociaciones, según han anunciado fuentes responsables del sector educativo de la Comunidad de Madrid.
Barenboim es uno de los más prestigiosos músicos del panorama mundial. Como director de orquesta y pianista ha alcanzado ya los puestos más elevados del circuito occidental y había comenzado a dedicar su inmensa popularidad a favorecer causas relacionadas con la paz y entendimiento entre los pueblos, destacando su militancia a favor del diálogo entre palestinos e israelita.En España, aparte de sus frecuentes apariciones artísticas, ha dedicado una intensa energía a la Fundación que lleva su nombre, junto con el del pensador palestino Edward Said, una iniciativa que junta a jóvenes de diversos países para hacer de la música un lenguaje de fraternidad y tiene su sede en Sevilla.
El nombramiento del Barenboim como cabeza del Conservatorio Superior madrileño ha sorprendido a propios y extraños. El maestro, no obstante, lo ha razonado como una aportación trascendental a la pacificación de un sector como es el de la educación musical que tiene en Madrid una beligerancia que nada tiene que envidiar a los conflictos internacionales más señalados. Si Barenboim se ha enfrentado a sus propios hermanos judíos para que vuelvan a escuchar a Wagner y ha hecho del diálogo permanente entre enemigos una estrategia de enorme esperanza, ¿por qué no aplicar el mismo bálsamo a una madeja tan enredada como es el Conservatorio Superior madrileño?
El único punto polémico del acuerdo podría haber sido el del sueldo tal y como están las finanzas, pero el gran artista ha zanjado el asunto proponiendo cobrar un simbólico euro al año por su gestión. Exigiendo, eso sí, una flexibilidad de horarios y presencia física en el centro que le permita seguir atendiendo a todas sus obligaciones.
Este nombramiento, en suma, añade excelencia artística al ahorro económico y permite que el arisco y permanentemente enrabietado sector de la educación musical superior se sitúe a la altura de los grandes desafíos que la Comunidad de Madrid se plantea, como es el caso del gran macrocentro de apuestas y juegos de azar con el que se quiere poner el nombre de Madrid en lo más alto del circuito mundial de brillantes capitales. Por una vez, bien está lo que bien acaba.
Never one to miss his timing, the ultimate minimalist has just announced the program for his 75th birthday concert at Carnegie Hall on January 31. It includes the US premiere of his ninth symphony which, according to this recent video interview, he only finished last week.
Press release follows.
AMERICAN COMPOSERS ORCHESTRA CELEBRATES
PHILIP GLASS’S 75TH BIRTHDAY
WITH CONDUCTOR LAUREATE DENNIS RUSSELL DAVIES
IN STERN AUDITORIUM/PERELMAN STAGE ON TUESDAY, JANUARY 31Concert Features the US Premiere of Glass’s Ninth Symphony plus
New York Premiere of Arvo Pärt’s Lamentate
ACO Returns to Zankel Hall in March with Music Director George Manahan for World Premieres by Gabriel Kahane and Ian Williams
On composer Philip Glass’s 75th birthday, Tuesday, January 31, 2012 at 8:00 p.m., Conductor Laureate and American Composers Orchestra (ACO) co-founder Dennis Russell Davies returns to lead the orchestra in Stern Auditorium/Perelman Stage. The celebratory program includes the US premiere of Glass’s Symphony No. 9 (co-commissioned by Carnegie Hall, the Los Angeles Philharmonic, and the Bruckner Orchester Linz) and the New York premiere of Arvo Pärt’s Lamentate, with pianist Maki Namekawa.
The program notes describe Glass’s Symphony No. 9 as “a large scale, three movement work for orchestra, and while direct in form, it will be formidable in performance with piccolos doubled, horn section fortified, and with bass brass, and timpani doubled. The Ninth promises to be, in the composer’s words ‘big and unrelenting,’ with an avoidance of solo passagework, this piece will be a real team effort throughout. Each movement follows a similar plan: an opening theme broadly stated a contrasting highly energized middle section, and a slower ending with a newer version of the opening theme. Throughout the work becomes increasingly dense and contrapuntal thereby giving the whole work its overall dramatic shape.”
Philip Glass wrote his first purely orchestral work—his Violin Concerto—on a commission from ACO in 1987. He and Davies (who has been involved in the commission and/or recording of all of Glass’ symphonic works) have been musical collaborators for over 40 years.
The third and final performance of ACO’s Carnegie Hall season, titled Orchestra Underground: American Accounts, is conducted by George Manahan on Thursday, March 22, 2012 at 7:30 p.m.and features world premieres by Ian Williams and Gabriel Kahane, the New York premiere of Trail of Tears by Michael Daugherty, Milton Babbitt’s From the Psalter, and Aaron Copland’s Clarinet Concerto with clarinetist Derek Bermel. The program also features soprano Judith Bettina and flutistAmy Porter.
I’ve linked up a few tracks and videos with the late lamented Martin Isepp at the piano, or harpsichord. Unassuming to a fault, you can hear how immaculately he shaped the architecture of a song. First up: with Frederica von Stade in early French songs at the 1976 Edinburgh Festival.
Next, Paul Austin Kelly sings Strauss
Finally, fittingly, Martin on the harpsichord accompanying Alexander Young in the Thomas Arne song, Come Away Death. RIP.
Adrienne Cooper, one of the leaders of the klezmer revival, has died in New York of cancer, aged 65.
Adrienne, a fourth-generation yiddish singer, worked with a host of groups – The Klezmatics, Frank London’s Klezmer Brass AllStars, David Krakauer, Zalmen Mlotek, So-Called, The Three Yiddish Divas, Marilyn Lerner, Michael Winograd, Alicia Svigals and Mikveh, Greg Wall’s Unity Orchestra, Joyce Rosenzweig,The Flying Bulgar Klezmer Band, Kapelye, and more.
She is survived by her daughter, Sarah Gordon, also a singer, and her partner, pianist Marilyn Lerner.
And here she is singing that immortal hit, Gefilte Fish
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* yiddish for passed away, poor thing. BDA (Hebrew for RIP).
Queen Beatrix of the Netherlands has invited one of her country’s endangered orchestras to play on her state visit next month to Oman and the United Arab Emirates.
The Radio Philharmonic Chamber orchestra will cease to exist in August 2013 if government cuts go through. The Queen is a strong supporter of classical music. Her invitation may be taken as a strong signal of royal displeasure. Read on here.
Helmut Oehring was born to parents who were profoundly deaf. He has written a book about finding his sound language through sign language.
The Nordwestdeutsche Philharmonie, conducted by the American Eugene Tzigane, has been given three year’s breathing space by the town of Minden after running into financial crisis. It’s being paraded as a good news story, but in the small print the town will actually reduce its subsidy from 146,000 Euros to 81,000 and the orchestra will have to find the rest from private sources.
Where do we think these guys are going?
Photo: Joachim Grothus, Bielefeld
Advance data suggest a one percent increase in 2011, against a 12.7 percent drop in 2010. But Digital Music News thinks it could be wishful thinking. Revenue is likely to be down again.
The treat on your Slipped Disc turntable this morning comes from the oh-so shrewdly named French label, naive.
It’s an upcoming release of Mémoriale by Pierre Boulez for solo flute and 8 instruments (2 horns, 3 violins, 2 violas, cello) lasting 5’39, followed by a bonus track of Fantaisie (Les Pleurs d’Orphée ayant perdu sa femme), possibly by Luigi Rossi.
