About the Music
|
Iberian Mystics |
Tomas Luis De Victoria, Manual De Falla, and Spanish Tradition |
About the
Presenters
|
Angel Gil-Ordóñez |
Joseph
Horowitz |
John Farina |
Barbara Mujica |
Hashim El-Tinay |
Press /
Reviews
|
Le Matin (Rabat) |
La
Vanguardia (Barcelona) |
The Washington Post
(Washington) |
______________________________________
The Music:
By John Farina
Art throughout the ages has been suffused with spirit. Art is the
search for beauty. Elusive, defying our feeble attempts to express
it, the aesthetic dimension often appears shrouded in mystery.
Religious experience-what today so often is called spirituality-has
mingled freely with the aesthetic, sometime consciously, other times
inchoately. Part of every great religion is an experience of the
ineffable. It moves beyond words and even beyond knowing. The
mystical and aesthetic dimensions have always been present together,
even in times when the world of institutions and external forms has
obscured them.
Spain in
the late Middle Ages was alive to spirit and beauty. It produced a
way of life that continued nourishing rich artistic expressions well
into the Renaissance. There on the Iberian Peninsula, Jewish,
Muslim, and Christian cultures interacted. Arabic, Hebrew, and
Latin mixed in the production of indigenous languages. Ideas were
shared. And blood exchanged in intermarriage. Architectural styles
blended into a grand eclectic fusion of Moorish, Romanesque, and
Gothic shapes. Sounds from Sephardic folk songs and dances of
whirling dervishes, blended with Christian polyphony. And elements
of the mystical thought of the three great Abrahamic faiths flowed
together.
Sufism
-- the esoteric, often suppressed vision of Moslem mystics -- broke
forth in the writings of the Andalusian sage Ibn al Arabi. His
Bezels of Wisdom are among the finest expressions of the way of
the Sufi saints. In Judaism, Sephardic writers meditating on the
meaning of the Torah found a rich, hidden symbolism in the words of
the scripture. Highly imaginative, they spoke of the ten seferot,
or emanations of the Godhead, that metaphorically expressed
themselves throughout creation. Moses de Leon and his school
authored the famous book of the Kabala, The Zohar, "the Book
of Splendor."
Both
those traditions found their way into the Christian mysticism of
Spain. Beginning with the medieval work of Raymond Lull, the habit
of borrowing from Sufi and Kabalistic sources continued into the
Renaissance. Luis de Leon, following the Muslim practice of
meditating on the names of God, wrote The Names of Christ.
The Jesuit founder, Ignatius Loyola, employed the imagination in a
journey to self-knowledge in his Spiritual Exercises. Theresa
of Avila envisioned the whole of the spiritual life as a passage
within to a luminous
Interior Castle.
And John of the Cross wrote the magnificent erotic poetry of The
Dark Night and Love's Living Flame.
Before
Isabel and Ferdinand expelled the Jews and Muslims, this diverse
intra-religious dialogue thrived. After 1492, it endured in the
artistic vision of mystics, musicians, poets, and painters.
Tonight's Post-Classical Ensemble concert of music and poetry is the
culminating event in a day-long conference jointly hosted by
Georgetown University's Faculty for Language and Linguistics,
Department of Spanish and Portuguese, The Center for Contemporary
Arab Studies, the Catholic Studies Program, the Center for the Study
of Jewish Civilization the Program on Performing Arts and the
Woodstock Theological Center.
Tomas Luis De Victoria, Manuel De Falla, and
By Angel Gil-Ordóñez
Tomas
Luis de Victoria is a product of the Siglo de Oro
("The Golden Century") when Spain was the dominant European nation,
Philip II was the powerful Spanish king - and Victoria was Europe's
greatest composer.
He was
born in Avila, Castile, in 1548. He went to Rome as a young man and
was befriended by Palestrina - the leading Italian church composer
of the time. He succeeded Palestrina at the Roman Seminary in 1571
and was ordained a priest four years later. But he yearned to return
to Spain - which he did some time in the 1590s as chaplain to the
widowed sister of Philip II, living in a convent. He died in 1611,
having in effect retired from the world.
Victoria
was a central proponent of the same passionate Spanish mysticism as
John of the Cross and Theresa of Avila. In fact, Theresa actually
knew Victoria - they were born in the same city. His music shares
their Spanish exaltation and austerity, their gift for making the
most of minimal means. It is useful, as well, to think of El
Escorial - the palace/monastery Philip built north of Madrid, a
structure as severe as the typical Italian Renaissance palace was
florid. "Our soul is an interior castle" wrote Teresa; Philip's soul
is El Escorial, whose plain exterior is mute. Or think of Philip
himself, who renounced his throne to become a religious hermit. I
find this amazing fear of God, and of worldly success, typical of
the world of sixteenth century Spanish Catholicism
And what
is more austere than plainchant, which is so basic to Victoria's
style that someone described his music as "polyphonic Gregorian
chant"? Victoria's polyphony also illustrates an obsession for
clearly conveying the text: the word of God.
I would
even call Victoria a greater composer than the most famous of modern
Spanish composers - Manuel de Falla. More important: they are
similar in spirit. Falla was intensely religious, ascetic,
meticulous. His output, like Victoria's, was relatively small.
Victoria went to Rome of instruction; Falla went to Paris. Both
returned to Spain. Both grew hermetic late in life. Falla's keyboard
concerto, in particular, pays homage to medieval and Renaissance
Spanish religious music. And his El Amor Brujo
connects to Moorish Spain - connecting, in turn, with the Sephardic
tradition. In our performance, we move directly from the Arabian
music of Hicham Chami and Kim Sopata to the sinuous arabesques of
Amor Brujo. Falla exemplifies the confluence of the
"Music of Three Faiths" we celebrate this evening.
In 1492, those Jews
of Spain who refused to renounce their faith as required by the
Inquisition were expelled from their homeland of 1,500 years. Known
as Sephardim (from the Hebrew word for Spain, Sefarad), they
found new homes in Portugal (until 1497), the Ottoman Empire, North
Africa, the Middle East, and part of Europe. For 500 years these
exiles have continued to identify themselves as Spanish Jews,
preserving much of their Iberian experience and the language spoken
at the time of their expulsion, called Judeo-Spanish or Ladino (from
Ladimar, meaning to translate the Torah from Hebrew into
Spanish). Because music was so central to their daily lives,
particularly among the women, they were able to preserve their
musical heritage via oral tradition.
The Sephardic
traditional songs Flory Jagoda performs and also composes are
similar to Bosnian Muslim lyric songs called sevdalinkas.
They share certain melodic patterns and a variety of Arabic scales.
She mainly acquired them from her grandmother in Bosnia.
The
contemporary settings of Sephardic songs we hear this evening were
created in 1999 by Roberto Sierra, who was born in Puerto Rico in
1953 and currently teaches composition at Cornell University. He
comments: "My intention in using traditional melodies was not to do
a mere 'arrangement,' but rather to recreate them within my own
musical language. The original melodies in some instances were mere
fragments upon which I elaborated."
Hicham
Chami and Kim Sopata perform two Muwashahat, the Muwashah
being a strophic song that originated in Al-Andalus (the medieval
Iberian peninsula). Hicham Chami comments: "The melody and the
structure of the muwashah vary in sophistication. The lyrics
are written in classical Arabic (fus'ha), as opposed to
colloquial or regional Arabic (amiyyah), and often deal with
love (unrequited), or with wine used as a metaphor for religious
intoxication (common in Sufism). I will play the Qanun, a descendent
of the old Egyptian harp. It was introduced to Europe by the twelfth
century, becoming known (during the fourteenth to sixteenth century)
as a psaltery or zither. It consist of a trapezoid-shaped flat board
over which 78 strings are stretched in groups of three. It is placed
flat on the knees or on a table; the strings are plucked with the
finger or with two plectra, attached to the forefinger of each hand.
More than any other instrument in Arab music, the qanum is suitable
for the display of virtuosity, of rapid scales and improved
melodic ornamentation."
By Joseph Horowitz
Federico García
Lorca called flamenco "the most gigantic creation of the Spanish
people." Flamenco's origins, however, are provocatively complex.
Indian dance and Arabic song are among its ingredients, preceding
elaboration and propagation by Andalusian Gypsies. Roman and Jewish
influences are also debated. A bewildering gamut of opinion ranges
from claims that flamenco is a strain of high culture complete unto
itself, to arguments that pure flamenco does not exist and that its
hybrid appropriations (as by Lorca and Manuel de Falla, both of whom
revered flamenco as much for its subtleties as for its
quintessential Spanish torments) are its supreme legacy.
One
central component of flamenco is cante jondo, or "deep
song," primarily the creation of Spanish Gypsies who had migrated
from northern India. Mistrust and misunderstanding of these
outsiders often led to fierce cultural assaults. In Spain, where
they arrived just before the Christian Reconquest and Inquisition of
the fifteenth century, the Gypsies endured edicts that made their
language and customs illegal. Cante jondo took shape
during generations of persecution. A parallel to America's blues is
suggestive: in both cases, genocidal terror engendered powerful
artistic expression. Cante jondo is a dense and tragic
outpouring
By the
mid-1800s, as official persecution eased, a few innovators saw the
possibilities of presenting flamenco and cante jondo
in public alongside popular Spanish artforms. The resulting
crossbreeds were powerfully challenged, in the 1920s, by Lorca and
Falla, both of whom successfully crusaded for the black austerities
of traditional flamenco.
Falla's
supreme homage to flamenco, El Amor Brujo
(roughly translated as Love Under a Spell), was
written for the famous flamenco dancer Pastora Imperio. She sang,
danced, and spoke the part of the Gypsy Candelas in the original
1915 version, parts of which we hear tonight (and which uses a small
pit orchestra of fifteen instruments). Candelas is haunted by the
specter of her dead lover, a violent and jealous man. Her new
suitor, Carmelo, engages the services of their friend Lucia to
distract the philandering specter so that Carmelo and Candelas can
kiss and break the spell. Most of the action is cloaked by night.
The most familiar number, the Fire Dance, is Candela's ritual of
exorcism, shedding her dead lover. The bells of dawn peal joyously
at the close. (Falla subsequently revised the work for a larger
orchestra - the version more commonly encountered today.)
Like flamenco
itself, this celebrated homage to cante jondo audibly
links to the religious severity, mystical exaltation, and
cross-cultural fertilization of Renaissance Spain.
________________________________
The
Presenters:
Angel Gil-Ordóñez
has attained an outstanding reputation among Spain's new generation
of conductors. Mr. Gil-Ordóñez carries on the tradition of his
teacher and mentor, Sergiu Celibidache. The Washington Post
has praised his conducting as "mesmerizing" and "as
colorfully textured as a fauvist painting." The former Associate
Conductor of the National Symphony Orchestra of Spain, Gil-Ordóñez
has conducted symphonic music, opera and ballet throughout Europe,
the United States and Latin America. In the United States he has
appeared with the American Composers Orchestra, Opera Colorado, the
Pacific Symphony, and the Hartford Symphony, and leads the Brooklyn
Philharmonic in a Spanish program at the Brooklyn Academy of Music
later this season. Abroad, he has been heard with the Munich
Philharmonic, the Solistes de Berne, at the Schleswig-Holstein
Music Festival, and at the Bellas Artes National Theatre in Mexico
City. In summer 2000 he toured the major music festivals of Spain
with the Valencia Symphony Orchestra in the Spanish premiere of
Leonard Bernstein's Mass.
A specialist in the Spanish repertoire, Mr. Gil-Ordóñez has recorded
four CDs devoted to Spanish composers with the Radio and Television
Symphony Orchestra of Spain, the Madrid Symphony Orchestra, the
Galicia Symphony Orchestra and the Camara XXI chamber orchestra.
Born in Madrid, he worked closely with Sergiu Celibidache for more
than six years in Germany. He also studied with Pierre Boulez and
Iannis Xenakis in France. Currently Music Director of Post-Classical
Ensemble in Washington DC, Mr. Gil-Ordóñez also holds the positions
of Director of Orchestral Studies at Wesleyan University in
Connecticut and Music Director of the Wesleyan Ensemble of the
Americas.
Joseph
Horowitz has long been a pioneer in classical music
programming, beginning with his tenure as Artistic Advisor for the
annual Schubertiade at the 92nd Street Y. As Executive Director of
the Brooklyn Philharmonic Orchestra, resident orchestra of the
Brooklyn Academy of Music, he received national attention for "The
Russian Stravinsky," "American Transcendentalists," "Flamenco," and
other festivals exploring the folk roots of concert works. Now an
artistic advisor to various American orchestras, he has created more
than two dozen interdisciplinary music festivals since 1985. As
Festival Consultant and Humanities Coordinator of the New Jersey
Symphony Orchestra, he most recently curated "American Roots," a
three-week festival of American music from before 1920. As Artistic
Advisor to the Pacific Symphony Orchestra (Orange County,
California), he helps to create an annual American music festival.
Called "our nation's leading scholar of the symphony orchestra" by
Charles Olton, the outgoing President of the American Symphony
Orchestra League, Mr. Horowitz is also the award-winning author of
five books dealing with the institutional history of classical music
in the United States. As Project Director of an NEH National
Education Project, he is most recently the author of a book for
young readers on Dvorak in America. His Classical Music in the
United States: A History, supported by fellowships from the
Guggenheim and Columbia University, will be published in early 2005.
A former New York Times music critic, Mr. Horowitz writes regularly
for the Sunday New York Times and for the Times Literary
Supplement (UK) and contributes frequently to scholarly
journals. He lectures widely in the United States and abroad.
Woodstock Senior
Fellow John Farina, an expert on
the history of Western spirituality, is the former editor-in- chief
of the critically acclaimed Classics of Western Spirituality
(65 vols.), a collection of the works of Islamic, Jewish, and
Christian classical texts. He was the general editor of the 25
volume Sources of American Spirituality and the general
editor of the 12 volume Spiritual Legacy series. His most
recent works include Beauty for Ashes: Spiritual Reflections on
the Attack on America and Great Spiritual Masters: Their
Answers to Six of Life's Questions.
Barbara Mujica
is a specialist in
Early Modern Spanish literature who has written extensively on
mysticism, the pastoral novel, and seventeenth-century theater. Her
latest books are Women Writers of Early Modern
Spain:
Sophia's Daughters, scheduled for publication in 2004 by Yale
University Press, and Teresa de Jesús: Espiritualidad y feminismo,
scheduled for publication in 2004 by Biblioteca Crítica. Bárbara
Mujica edited several collections of articles and has published
eight anthologies of Spanish and Spanish American literature. She is
also a novelist, whose latest book, Frida, was published in
thirteen languages and was an international bestseller. Together
with Professor Dennis MacAuliffe she is co-chair of the Catholic
Studies Program at Georgetown University.
Hashim El-Tinay
is the recipient of the 2000 Advocate for Peace Award of the
Tanenbaum Centre for Inter-religious Understanding. Dr. El-Tinay is
founder and president of Salam Sudan Foundation (SSF), a non-profit
international peace Non-Governmental Organization (NGO) in
Paris,
France. He has since 1993 been, as editor-in-chief of Le Messager
(The Messenger), actively sharing with and engaging diverse
audiences with his progressive, universal and spiritual perspectives
on peace, Islam, the West and the need
for a
dialogue of cultures, religions, and civilizations.
Rabbi Harold S. White
is the first rabbi to be appointed to a full time Campus Ministry position
at a Catholic university. He teaches in the Theology Department of Georgetown
and has been very active in creating a milieu for Jewish-Christian theological
dialogue in the greater Washington, D.C. area. Rabbi White's current
academic interests center about Kabbalistic Studies and the Judaic Roots
of Christian scripture. Rabbi White was also the associate rabbi of Temple
Sinai in Washington, D.C., from
1980-1985. He has lectured extensively nationwide. He currently serves
as scholar-in-residence at Holy Cross Abbey in Berryville, VA, and at Mercersberg
Academy in Mercersburg, PA. Rabbi White
currently serves as the spiritual leader of Temple B'nai Israel in Easton, Maryland. He holds
degrees from Wesleyan University and the Jewish Theological Seminary.
Woodley Ensemble,
founded in 1991, specializes in Renaissance repertoire as well as
works from the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The Ensemble
regularly introduces unknown choral music through performing
editions created especially for the group from early manuscript
sources. A recent Woodley Ensemble CD, "Love Songs for Chorus"
featuring music by Bernard Rands, Augusta Read Thomas and William
Hawley, was featured on the cover of the September/October issue of
Fanfare Magazine. The Ensemble has also completed two
historic recordings of hymns from the 1940 Episcopal Hymnal for the
Bluemont Records label. Frank Albinder, the Ensemble's Music
Director since 2000, has directed the group in two recordings, one
of which has been nominated for five Grammy awards.
Woodley Ensemble's
singers for this program are:
Thomas Cirillo, Jason,Grove, Terrance Johns,
Elizabeth Lyman, Aaron McAllister, Stephen Pearcy, Nicholas Pepin,
Jean-Luc Princivil, Darrell Sampson and Daryl Schaffer.
Flory Jagoda
grew up in a musical Sephardic family in Vlasenica, a mountain
village near Sarajevo, Bosnia. As a refugee in Italy after WWII, she
married Master Sergeant Harry Jagoda and eventually settled in
Northern Virginia. An accomplished composer, singer and musician,
she plays accordion and guitar and is committed to preserving and
introducing the songs and culture of the Sephardim. She has appeared
widely in Canada, the former Yugoslavia, Turkey, Poland, Russia,
France, Spain, and Austria. She has been honored by the NEA with a
2002 National Heritage Fellowship Award and she is the recipient of
a 2003 Immigrant Achievement Award. She recently performed in Poland
at a ceremony commemorating the Sephardim who perished at Auschwitz.
She is the subject of a documentary film, The Key
from Spain.
Robert Bass
has performed throughout the United
States as a soloist and has
been a guest accompanist with vocal and instrumental ensembles
throughout the Washington
area.. A founding member of La
Rondinella, which has made three recordings
of Sephardic and Spanish Renaissance
music for the Dorian label, he has also performed
and recorded with the Smithsonian Chamber Players, HESPERUS, the
Folger Consort, the Baltimore Consort, and the
Choral Arts Society of Washington. In
recent years he has worked extensively as an accompanist
with Flory Jagoda. He is a program producer at the Smithsonian's
National
Museum of the American Indian.
Hicham Cham is
a leading exponent of the qanum - a plucked, zither-like instrument with
72 strings. He was born in Tetuan, Morocco, in 1977. He began playing
Qanun at the age of eight and graduated from the Moroccan National Conservatory
of Music and Dance with high honors. In Chicago, he collaborated with
Issa Boulos, a Palestinian composer, in his Al-Sharq Ensemble. Chicago's
diversity also offered him the opportunity to perform Jewish music with
the "TiTiko" Ensemble and its acclaimed cantor, Hazzan Alberto
Mizrahi. He recently organized a new
Chicago-based ensemble, "Mosaic," which performs traditional instrumental
music from the North African, Sephardic, Egyptian, Levantine, Greek, Turkish,
and Armenian repertoire. His first CD, "Promises," was released
in January 2003.
Kim Sopata
performs as flutist for the
Milwaukee, Elgin, and New World Symphonies, as well
as with guitarist James Baur as The Avanti Duo. After graduating
with honors from Northwestern University, Ms. Sopata became acting
principal flutist of the South Carolina Philharmonic, while
performing regularly with the Charlotte Symphony. She is currently
pursuing a master's degree in ethnomusicology at Bethel College in
Minneapolis. Ms. Sopata is on the faculty of the Zion Conservatory
of Music in Illinois, maintains a large private studio, and writes
music reviews for FIute Talk Magazine. She recently
published The Flute Lesson Handbook.
Keri Alkema
is a member of the newly formed Domingo-Cafritz Young Artist Program
of the Washington Opera, where she was most recently heard as
Clotilde in the in Norma. This year, she made her debut with
the Spoleto Festival USA as Mistress Benson in Lakme. She
also made her New York recital debut, sponsored by the Marilyn Horne
Foundation. Her upcoming engagements include Flora in La
Traviata with the Washington Opera. She was a member of the
Chautauqua Opera's 2002 Apprentice Artist Program, appearing as Meg
in Mark Adamo's Little Women and also winning the
Apprentice Award.
Sara Jerez
is well-known in the Washington area for her flamenco performances.
She began her flamenco career after many years of ballet, working in
Spain with Carmen Cortiz, Carmela Greco, La Tati, and Goyo Montero.
She returns to Spain every year to continue her studies. She has
appeared with the Ana Martinez Flamenco Dance Company and the Arte
Flamenco Dance Company. She recently appeared in Washington Opera's
production of Don Giovanni.
Post-Classical Ensemble
Post-Classical Ensemble, called by the Washington Post "a welcome,
edgy addition to the musical life of Washington", was created in
2003 by Angel Gil-Ordóñez and Joseph Horowitz. "More than an
orchestra", it breaks out of classical music, with its implied
notion of a high-culture remote from popular art. Its concerts
regularly incorporate folk song, dance, film, and commentary in
order to serve existing audiences hungry for deeper engagement, and
to cultivate adventurous new listeners. Its debut program, which
drew 1,200 people to George Washington University,s Lisner
Auditorium last May 1, featured music by Silvestre Revueltas in
combination with a Mexican film and a folk singer. On Feburary 5 it
presents "Csárdás!", with the participation of a leading folk band
from Budapest and a stellar Russian keyboard virtuoso.
The Woodstock Theological
Center at Georgetown
University is successor of the famous Woodstock Seminary in
Woodstock, Maryland. The Center, celebrating its thirtieth
anniversary in 2004,is dedicated to examining questions of religion
and culture. Its many projects and publications include studies of
business ethics, health care ethics, civic renewal and the role of
religious institutions, the effect of globalization on the poor of
developing countries, and inter-religious dialog.
Press /
Reviews:
Le
Matin (Rabat)
La
Vanguardia (Barcelona)
The
Washington Post (Washington)
Information:
| Sephardic Songs |
Arab Music |
El Amor Brujo |
| Rabbi Harold S. White |
Woodley Ensemble |
Flory Jagoda |
Robert Bass | Hicham Chami |
| Kim Sopata | Keri
Alkema | Sara Jerez |
Post-Classical Ensemble |
| The Woodstock
Theological Center |
Spanish Tradition
Music Director
Post-Classical Ensemble
Artistic Director
Post-Classical Ensemble
12/13/2003
De la musique pour nourrir la paix et la tolérance:
Hicham Chami brille au concert des Trois croyances à
Washington
Sous la présidence de Son Altesse Royale le Prince Héritier
d'Espagne, Felipe de Borbon y Grecia, l'Université de
Georgetown a organisé le 5 décembre 2003, un prestigieux concert
consacré à la musique des trois croyances, Musulmane , Judaique et
Chrétienne.
Cette grande manifestation s'est déroulée en présence d'un millier
de personnes, dont les membres du Comité d'honneur présidé par
l'ambassadeur du Royaume du Maroc aux Etats-Unis d'Amérique M.
Aziz Mekouar et comprenant les ambassadeurs d'Espagne, de la
Lgue arabe, d'Algérie, du Danemark, de Djibouti, de l'Indonésie, de
Jordanie, du Kyrgyzstan, de la Syrie, le Président de l'Université
Georgetown, les Présidents des aumôneries musulmane et hébraïque, le
directeur du Centre Woodstock pour la théologie Chrétienne ainsi que
d'éminents professeurs émérites et personnalités des Universités de
Georgtown, de Yale de San Francisco, de la Fondation Daniel Pearl,
de «Seeds of Peace» et de l'Institut du Moyen Orient.
Le concert a eu un immense succès de par, d'abord, l'idée qui
inspirait ses organisateurs, puisée dans les besoins que ressent de
nos jours la communauté internationale pour renforcer la coopération
culturelle entre des peuples de religions différentes, pour faire
face aux dangers de l'intolérance, de l'extrémisme et de
l'obscurantisme religieux. L'art et la musique en particulier
contribuent efficacement à la rencontre des cultures du monde quels
que soient leur nature et les fondements religieux qui les inspirent.
Les organisateurs donnent comme témoignage l'exemple de la
Renaissance Espagnole où les religions sus-visées ont cohabité dans
une harmonie parfaite et où les artistes de confession musulmane,
juive et chrétienne ont permis de nourrir une culture de paix et de
tolérance.
Le choix du Maroc pour représenter la tradition arabo-musulmane dans
cette rencontre internationale, n'est guère le fruit du hasard. Cela
témoigne, si besoin est, de sa réputation de pays ou peuvent exister
harmonieusement toutes les cultures et religions du monde , et ou
l'amour de la paix et l'esprit de la tolérance sont fortement
enracinés dans le c¦ur des citoyens.
C'est à juste titre que tout récemment, au colloque sur le «dialogue
entre les cultures» ouvert jeudi dernier à Rabat, le message adressé
aux participants par Sa Majesté le Roi Mohammed VI que Dieu
le Glorifie évoque le Maroc comme étant une «terre de c¦xistence, de
tolérance et de dialogue permanent avec les Etats et les peuples».
Ce sont également les prestations des concertistes qui ont séduit le
public présent à cette manifestation si riche en symboles. Ainsi, la
musique du monde judaïque fut représentée par la chanteuse bosniaque
Flory Jagoda et l'américaine Keri Alkema qui ont
excellé dans l'interprétation d'¦uvres de musique séfarade,
accompagnée par l'Orchestre Post Clasique de la ville de
Washington.
S'en est suivi une lecture de Moses de Leon, par Rabbi Harold
White.
Représentant la musique du monde chrétien, la Chorale du Woodley
Ensemble dirigée par l'Espagnol Angel-Gil Ordonez a
enchanté l'auditoire avec des ¦uvres de T.L. de Victoria
(1548-1611). Ce programme fut suivi par une lecture des textes de
John of The Cross (1542-1591), Theresa of Avila (1515-1582) et
Ignatius Loyola (1491-1556).
La troisième partie du programme fut consacrée à la musique du monde
arabo-musulman.
C'est le jeune prodige Hicham Chami qui, s'est dignement
acquitté de cette tâche en charmant le public avec son quanoun dans
des ¦uvres de musique andalouse marocaine, des mouwashahates qui
puisent leurs origines dans la poésie andalouse du 13e et 14e
siècles ainsi que des taqassims.
Le Marocain était accompagné de la virtuose Kim Sopata,
grande spécialiste de la flûte traversière, soliste de l'Orchestre
de musique classique orientale de la ville de Chicago, et membre de
l'Orchestre Symphonique de Milwaukee.
Cette prestation longuement ovationnée par le public fut suivie
d'une lecture des textes d'Ibn Al Arabi (1165-1240) , donnée par
Hicham Al Tinay, président de la Fondation SSF, et récipiendaire
du OAdvocate for peace award' par le Tanenbaum Center. Le concert
fut clôturé par une interprétation de l'¦uvre de Manuel de Falla, El
Amor Brujo.
Òn rappellera que Hicham Chami est un lauréat du
Conservatoire de Rabat. Titulaire d'un MBA en marketing obtenu à «Depaul
University» de Chicago, il entame cette année la préparation d'un
PHD, en parallèle avec la pratique du quanoun, son instrument de
prédilection. Il a sillonné les Etats-Unis en donnant de nombreux
concerts avec des formations aussi prestigieuses que d'origine
diversifiée.
Cette ouverture sur toutes les cultures du monde lui ont valu d'être
primé l'année dernière «the best Instrumentalist» et d'être l'invité
de plusieurs festivals et représentations musicales réunissant des
artistes de culture et de confession diverses, comme ce fut le cas
pour le concert de Washington.
12/7/2003
Washington homenajea a la España de las tres religiones
Eusebio Val, Corresponsal
WASHINGTON - La Universidad de Georgetown, en Washington, acogió el
viernes un espectáculo inspirado en la época en que en España
convivían las culturas cristiana, judía y musulmana. El concierto,
"Iberian mystics", contó con el patronazgo del príncipe Felipe.
La velada corrió a cargo de la Post-Classical Ensemble, un
grupo fundado este año en la capital estadounidense y dirigido por
el español Ángel Gil-Ordóñez. En "Iberian mystics" se leyeron
textos de santa Teresa y san Juan de la Cruz, y poemas judios del
siglo XI. Hubo interpretación de piezas de Tomás Luis de Victoria y
conciones sefardies y árabes. El concierto se cerró con fragmentos
de El amor brujo", de Falla, porque esta pieza, según Gil-Ordóñez,
conectó la música árabe con las tradiciones cristiana y sefardí.
Gil-Ordóñez, discipulo de Celdibache, es profesor en la Wesleyan
University de Connecticut.
12/5/2003
Musicians Strike a Note For Peace and Harmony
Diplomatic Dispatches
By Nora Boustany
It may be naive to hope for the triumph of music over politics, or
peace over war. Achieving harmony between strikingly different
instruments and players takes practice and patience. But some recent
examples offer hope.
Daniel Barenboim, the Israeli pianist and conductor, and Edward W.
Said, the late Palestinian American academic, may have set the tone.
Barenboim, music director of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, and
Said founded the Middle East Youth Orchestra several years ago,
bringing Israeli and Arab musicians together. For the 1990s, it was
a unique if controversial statement, a protest against uglier
realities.
Last summer, as war raged in the Middle East, Barenboim, a Jew born
in Argentina and raised in Israel, performed in a church at the
funeral of Said, a Christian raised in the Arab world before
becoming an American. That unusual occurrence looks like a trend
this season.
World Bank President James D. Wolfensohn and James H. Billington,
the librarian of Congress, hosted a peace concert and dinner at the
Library of Congress last night. Among the musicians were cellists
YoYo Ma and Sharon Robinson, U2's lead singer Bono, pianist Vladimir
Feltsman and violinists Pinchas Zukerman and Jaime Lauredo, as well
as leading performers from Israel, Lebanon, Jordan and Turkey.
Taking a break from dealing with world development questions,
Wolfensohn was on the program as a cellist. He also plucked a few
chords at his own 70th birthday celebration for 650 guests at
Carnegie Hall this week.
The Post-Classical Ensemble of Washington under music
director and conductor Angel Gil-Ordoñez is scheduled to
perform tonight. Its program, "Iberian Mystics: The Music of
Three Faiths," showcases re-creations of 15th-century music and
Sephardic and Arabic songs alongside 20th-century adaptations. The
program evokes a chapter in European history "when Jews, Christians
and Muslims lived side by side despite their intractable differences
and enduring hostilities," nourishing "a complex culture of
tolerance," according to Maria Rosa Menocal, director of the
Whitney Humanities Center at Yale University.
Next Friday, the Western Policy Center has scheduled a concert at
St. Matthew's Cathedral by the Romeiko Ensemble, a Greek and Turkish
group that performs Byzantine chants and Sufi music.
The events scheduled this week take place as Arab and Israeli
negotiators, in town to discuss their newly crafted Geneva Accord
with U.S. leaders, are trying their hand at peacemaking again. Stay
tuned.