Paris mourns festival music director
RIPThe Festival d’Automne à Paris has announced the death of Joséphine Markovits, one of its creators in 1972 and for many years the artistic director of its music programme. She was 77.
The festival writes: ‘Sensitive to popular and scholarly music, she travelled the world from the Australian desert to western Mongolia, contributing to the discovery, ordering and international dissemination of unreleased musical works. She made her listening and her essential approach to aesthetics a constant in her conception of music. Joséphine Markovits supported hundreds of artists, composers, conductors and musical ensembles; loyalty, artistic companionship and conviction have been the red thread of her career.’
A wonderful person, crucial to the production with the Lincoln Center Festival of The Peony Pavilion.
Josephine was an outstanding initiator of contemporary music, a brilliant and visionary programmer. Thank you J.
Without Josephine’s persistence and daring, Australian Aboriginal music and dance would have remained a sound track in a museum. Instead thousands paid to see ‘the real thing’ in Sept 1983 at the Bouffes du Nord, all produced by the Festival d’automne a Paris. And there were so many other initiatives before that – Tibet, South Africa ….