Just one week from now, the concert season will be launched by musikfest berlin 10, Berlin ’s international orchestra festival. Presented from September 2nd to 21st by the Berliner Festspiele in collaboration with the Stiftung Berliner Philharmoniker will be 24 concerts featuring more than 60 works by around 25 different composers, among them the German premieres of Quatre dédicaces and Stanze, a pair of orchestral compositions by Luciano Berio. At the centre of this year’s festival program alongside works by Luciano Berio is the creative achievement of Pierre Boulez. Appearing as conductor for two concerts with the Berliner Philharmoniker will be Boulez himself. The program of musikfest berlin 10 illuminates in particular the orchestral output of these two major composers. The first part of the festival will concentrate on the music of Berio, with the focus shifting increasingly to Boulez, culminating in a grandiose homage to his music at the festival's conclusion.
musikfest berlin 10 commences with two evenings, each consisting of an orchestral portrait concert devoted to one of our featured composers. Following a concert showcasing Bach’s Art of the Fugue on the eve of the festival opening, musikfest berlin will commence on September 3rd with a performance of Berio’s celebrated Folk Songs and Sinfonia by the London Symphony Orchestra under the direction of Daniel Harding. On September 4th, Boulez’s Le Soleil des eaux and Le Visage nuptial will receive a performance by the SWR Sinfonieorchester, the RIAS Kammerchor, and the radio choirs of the SWR and the NDR under the direction of Susanna Mälkki. Appearing as soloists will be singers Laura Aikin and Lani Poulson, pianist Pierre-Laurent Aimard, and violinist Thomas Zehetmair. Featured at 10 of the 24 festival concerts will be additional works by Boulez, including his extraordinary cycle Pli selon pli for voice and orchestra, interpreted by the Bamberger Symphoniker with Jonathan Nott and soprano Yeree Suh on September 19th at the Philharmonie.
Altogether eleven works by Luciano Berio are found on the programmes of seven musikfest berlin 10 concerts. The German premiere of Berio’s Quatre dédicaces will be performed on September 5th by the Koninklijk Concertgebouworkest of Amsterdam with Mariss Jansons. Receiving its German premiere on the following day is Berio's vocal composition Stanze in a performance by the London Philharmonic Orchestra with Vladimir Jurowski. Berio’s Coro will be presented at musikfest berlin 10 by the Berliner Philharmoniker and Sir Simon Rattle with the Rundfunkchor Berlin and soloists Stella Doufexis, Burkhard Ulrich, and Ildebrando d’Arcangelo. Additional highlights in this series of Berio performances will be a concert performed by musikFabrik with Peter Eötvös as conductor, and an appearance by Kent Nagano with the Bayerisches Staatsorchester, guests in Berlin once again after a protracted absence.
Presented in exceptional abundance at musikfest berlin 10 are the flagships of European ensemble culture: the Ensemble intercontemporain with two Boulez programs, the Ensemble Modern with Beat Furrer, and the musikFabrik with Peter Eötvös as conductor. Arriving from Belgium will be the ensemble graindelavoix, which performs late-14th century music, and the Duke Quartet from England , which performs string quartets by Kevin Volans. Also on the program are works by Igor Stravinsky, Béla Bartók, Sergei Prokofiev, Witold Lutosławski, Richard Strauss, Alban Berg, Anton Webern, Hector Berlioz, Claude Debussy, Maurice Ravel, Henri Pousseur, Peter Eötvös, Beat Furrer, and others.
musikfest berlin 10 comes to a close with two very special concert evenings on September 20th and 21st: the Boulez programme presented by the Staatskapelle Berlin will be accompanied by commentary delivered in person by Daniel Barenboim.
Information and tickets are available at www.berlinerfestspiele.de
Lack of skilled workers threatens recovery
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Workers with specialized skills like electricians, carpenters and welders are in critically short supply in many large economies, a shortfall that marks another obstacle to the global economic recovery, a research paper by Manpower Inc (NYSE:MAN - News) concludes.
Note: even the working people want to be a doctor (to many "doctors"...)
Russian police detain opposition leaders
MOSCOW (AP) -- Police prevented about 100 opposition activists from marching through Moscow on Sunday with a giant Russian flag and detained three of their leaders, including prominent politician Boris Nemtsov.
The opposition activists were celebrating Flag Day, a holiday honoring the tricolor flag adopted by a newly democratic Russia when the Soviet Union collapsed.
Nemtsov said the decision to stop a march honoring the Russian flag showed the mentality of Prime Minister Vladimir Putin's government.
"The flag is a symbol of freedom and democracy, only not for Putin," Nemtsov said, speaking to The Associated Press from a city police precinct.
Afghan couple stoned to death
A 25-year-old man and 19-year-old woman who eloped together have been stoned to death in a shocking display of Taliban power.
The Afghan couple were brutally killed when their own families requested that the Taliban arrest the pair after the couple, who were engaged to other people, ran away together.
Note: "their own families requested that the Taliban arrest the pair" (how horrible and disgusting people!)
It was not a spare case:
"... arrest of relatives on suspicion of killing a teenager for having friendships with boys. More than 200 such killings take place each year, said the piece, "accounting for around half of all murders in Turkey". According to Eurostat, Turkey's yearly murder rate averaged 6.1 per 100,000 population between 2005 and 2007 (the latest figures), meaning that the 200 are actually set against an annual total of about 4,400."
"Mahmod Mahmod murdered daughter Banaz
The victim of an "honour killing" had been dismissed by police as a fantasist
Mr Sulemani (Banaz's boyfriend) was deemed unsuitable because he did not come from the villages in Iraqi Kurdistan where the Mahmods originated." And thousands others that we didn't know.
Somalia: the taliban way
"Men are forced to grow beards. Women can't leave home without a male relative. Music, movies and watching sports on TV are banned.
... executions by stoning have become a public spectacle." from AP in The Kathmandu Post, August 23, 2010, page 5
