EXCEPTIONAL MUSICIAN, HUMANIST, FIGHTER FOR UNDERSTANDING AMONG PEOPLES, DANIEL BARENBOIM RETURNS WITH HIS ORCHESTRA, OFFERING A WONDERFUL PROGRAMME DEDICATED TO BEETHOVEN’S SYMPHONIES.
Barenboim returns to Buenos Aires to celebrate three events: 200 years of Argentina’s 1810 Revolución de Mayo, the reopening of the Teatro Colón and the 60th. anniversary of his first concert in this theatre.
The West-Eastern Divan is a youth orchestra based in Sevilla, Spain, consisting of musicians from countries in the Middle East, of Egyptian, Iranian, Israeli, Jordanian, Lebanese, Palestinian, and Syrian background. The Argentine-Israeli conductor Daniel Barenboim and the late Palestinian-American academic Edward Said founded the orchestra in 1999, and named the ensemble after an anthology of poems by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. The first orchestra workshop was in Weimar, Germany in 1999,[1] after the organisation had received over 200 applications from Arab music students.[2] Daniel Barenboim has also expressed interest in musicians from Iran (a non-Arab country but in conflict with Israel) and three Iranian musicians are to play in the Orchestra each year.The aim of the West-Eastern Divan is to promote understanding between Israelis and Palestinians and pave the way for a peaceful and fair solution of the Arab-Israeli conflicto. The orchestra has performed around the world, including Israel and the Palestinian territories. It has an annual summer school in Seville. Since 2002, Junta de Andalucía (Regional Government of Andalusia) and a private foundation have provided a base for the ensemble in Seville, Spain. Young musicians from Spain now also take part in the orchestra.
DANIEL BARENBOIM was born in Buenos Aires in 1942 and gave his first public concert when he was 7 years old. He played for the first time as soloist at 10, in Vienna and Rome, later in Paris, London and soon after in New York conducted by Stokowski. Since then he regularly tours Europe, United States, Southamerica, Australia and the Far East. After his debut as conductor of the Philharmonia orchestra, he has been invited to lead the leading European and American orchestras. He conducted opera for the first time in 1973 during the Edinburgh festival with a production of Don Giovanni. His debut in Bayreuth, in 1981, was followed by 18 years steady presence there. In 1999 he conducted Tristan and Isolde, the Ring, Parsifal and Meistersinger. That same year, Barenboim met the late Edward Said from Palestine creating the West-Eastern Divan orchestra together. Barenboim has also started an educational programme to be developed in Palestinian territorios. His aim is to teach music as a concept, during the whole educational process, in the schools. He is also committed to help the Music Academy to establish a Palestinian youth orchestra.
Mr. Barenboim is the author of
A Life in Music, and co-author of
Parallels and Paradoxes: Explorations in Music and Society, a series of conversations between Daniel Barenboim and Edward Said. Both books have been published in multiple languages. In November 2007, the Italian publisher Feltrinelli released Daniel Barenboim’s latest book, La Musica Sveglia il Tempo (Music Awakens Time); the book is scheduled to be released in a dozen other languages in the coming year. Another book has been edited: “Everything is connected”.
