Hamburg had Putin pet on one stage, Iranian women on the other
OrchestrasFrom our special correspondent:
Last night, the small hall of the Hamburg Elbphilharmonie saw the birth of a new ensemble for, no less, new music — led by the Iranian-German conductor Yalda Zamani and comprised of young performers all active with the leading contemporary music ensembles across Europe (Klangforum, Ensemble Modern, Athelas, etc.). The only veteran amongst them, if he could be called that at 40, was the harpsichordist Mahan Esfahani, who as concerto soloist donated his services to the success of this new venture.
It was overall a pretty special night, with four of the five composers performed being living (the Japanese Takuya Imahori, the Iranians Anahita Abbasi and Farzia Fallah, and the British Gary Carpenter). An appreciative audience of some 200 people (not bad for a contemporary music ensemble on its first outing), many of them younger than 35, was treated to a performance on an enviably high level of virtuosity.
In the big hall,, some hundred metres away, the SWR-Sinfonieorchester were playing under Teodor Currentzis, a Greek-Russian conductor long financed by the Putin regime. What a night — in one hall we had an Iranian woman building something new with two Iranian female composers and showing the future of music, and in the other a very different human specimen. Sales for Yalda Zamani’s concert accelerated thanks to interest generated by Slippedisc.com, yet not one person from the Elbphilharmonie’s artistic planning staff condescended to attend the concert or (according to musicians) show up to rehearsal or to extend a welcome. Germany’s arts apparatchiks have a long way to go and little of real value to offer when it comes to being on the right side of musical history.
It was the SWR Symphony Orchestra with Currenttis, not WDR! SWR‘s silence on their principal conductor has been infamously deafening for a long time. WDR has nothing to do with that…
Dear “special correspondent”,
why waste your time with stacking all these words on top of each other when your message easily could be summed up as “I hate Currentzis.”
Don’t be so dumb. Read the second paragraph.
I always read the whole article before I comment. For the contemporary performance is mentioned: The age of performers, their nationalities, the name and nationality of the four living composers, the number of people in the hall, and in the end a comment so general it’s doesn’t tell a word: “enviably high level of virtuosity”.
Not one word about the music, not one specific compliment to the composers or the musicians. The entire purpose of mentioning them is in the next paragraph to bash Currentzis, labelling him “a very different human specimen”.
Would you accept from your “special correspondent” if such words had been written about a Jewish performer?
Shows how open-minded they are.
Why is EVERYTHING tainted with politics, particularly of the “latest thing” sort? Is it because you lack any deeper connection to the universe through an awe-struck deference to the creator, so you adopt politics as your religion?
Oh heaven’s sake. Two different concerts happened at the same time, by two different ensembles. Both were probably quite good.
That is all. Stop politicising everything.
Sounds like the hall’s staff missed a chance! Would have loved to hear this new group. (Currentzis I could skip, I think.)
They may have been impressed by the sight of his thingie is that scandalous production, Landau. Who knows what motivates decisions these days.
Seconding that on both points. The programme of the small hall concert looks exciting. Will we hear more from them?
Why should the hall staff go to a concert if they don’t want to? Heck, why should anybody??
Fed up of the constant politicised content here. It’s all much ado about nothing in a desperate attempt to be relevant.
Throw in a little dash of political tarnish for what purpose? So on the one hand, you had the ooh-so-diverse-fill-in-the-pigeon-hole-of-diverisity-equity-inclusion, and on the other the evil establishment supported by a dictator… I simply do not understand the click baiting techniques of this site. So much potential… I’ve been reading it for a while. Rethinking my choices, really.
Thanks for even mentioning the new music concert. You got the details wrong though.The veteran (obviously a horrible word to describe a musician nowadays) musician of the ensemble you spoke of was not the only one over 40, in fact several of them are and are moreover much more dedicated to new music than the person you mentioned in your stupid and brainless review. The conductor is not Iranian-German. She is an Iranian conductor based in Germany. Stop spreading false information.