Featured Post

Click Here for Excerpts (and Reviews) for New Book

Saturday, November 17, 2012

Arabs and Jews Unite--Around Beethoven

One of the highlights of the opening ceremony of the London Olympics was a surprise (to me):  One of the eight flag bearers at the end was Daniel Barenboim, the great classical pianist for decades but here honored for his incredible work (with famed Palestinian writer Edward Said) in founding the West-East Divan Orchestra--made up of Israelis and Arabs, and mainly young people, against great odds.  They have played everywhere from Ramallah to (next February) Carnegie Hall, and I will be there.  As I have noted, Barenboim and Said deserved a Nobel Peace Prize, and perhaps Barenboim will still get it.  Here's a current video:

1 comment:

Laurence Glavin said...

A new online-only music magazine http://www.sinfinimusic.com has debuted, and as one would expect, the home page features two articles on Beethoven: one called Composer Playlist offers readers to get and understanding of Beethoven's life through his music; the other, a short discussion on the "Pathetique" Sonata by a recording artist who coincidentally has a CD out of the piece. A quite lovely young woman I must say.