Sad news: Guitarist Heike has died
RIPThe family has announced the death last night of the German classical guitarist Heike Matthiesen. Heike was 59 and had been battling cancer for five years. She is survived by her mother and sister.
Many of us knew her as one of the sweetest, most benign and positive communicators on social media.
After years of study with Pepe Romero, Heike put a friendly new face on the fretful work of guitar playing, often in contemporary music. She will be sorely missed.
Beautiful woman,beautiful soul,wonderful musician….Sad news.her latest album just has been released
Awesome artist !!
A small example of the narrow minded level of “journalism” exhibited here is the following:
This year has been one of the most transformative in the past 50 years for the classical guitar, with releases in DG, Warner, Pentatone, Sony, Decca, etc. Sean Shibe was in the cover of BBC Music, first UK guitarist since Bream in the 90’s. Plinio Fernandes, Rafael Feuillatre sign for Decca and DG, etc.
Here? ABSOLUTELY NOTHING. Crickets.
But Heike was active in the right kind of social media, is associated with one of the old guard masters (Pepe) and this does make it.
90% of what’s reported here is not really what matters, but who’s in the ever smaller circle of a handful of “insiders” with a myopic perspective about relevance. Some may call it just plain Gossip.
This of course is no Heike’s fault, an amazing human being who did a lot for the community. But knowing her for many years, I think she’d agree with this post more than not.
RIP to an incredible woman who was brave enough to carve her own place in the macho guitar world, on her own terms.
It may be time for you, Mr PR, to leave this site which you clearly find so unsatisfactory.
Don’t worry, I know this for sure won’t be in the top 100 most read blog entries, but its so telling that in so few words, you’re able to 1) violate the rights of your own site by giving a hint of my identity, when it clearly states this will never be shared 2) vividly embody the true exclusionary nature of this artform and particularly of this community: we are perfect, we do not entertain criticism, nor do we need change. If you don’t like it: LEAVE.
Oh, but 5 minutes later, when all halls are empty, there’s the proverbial outcry for the end of civilization as we know it, a ‘save the arts’ campaign which is really an excuse for badly run non-profits to use public funds to indoctrinate people in liking Beethoven more than contemporary artists, and artificially subsidizing an artform that people clearly don’t want to consume out of their own will. And adding insult to injury, these poor organizations use these funds to throw posh cocktails, soirees, and ‘fundraising events’ where the money stays circulating amongst a small clique of ‘insiders’.
And if you so much as to dare to mention any of this, the ‘industry’ will make you an outcast.
If classical music was anything bigger than a speck of dust in the world economy, John Oliver would’ve done more than one episode exposing the corruption, nepotism, harrassment and other amazing things that apparently arise after listening to Beethoven since the womb.
Luckily, the ‘classical’ realm not only it’s trivial at this point, its getting smaller by the minute.