The star violinist Gidon Kremer, reportedly to be joined by other top musicians such as Daniel Barenboim and Martha Argerich, is to give a concert aimed at focussing the attention of the world on what Kremer reportedly views as Russia's human rights abuses. One of the works to be performed in the concert has been announced as Angels of Sorrow by Giya Kancheli--programmed to mark the 50th birthday of Mikhail Khodorkovsky, the Russian businessman currently languishing in prison.
Protest concerts aren't exactly a new phenomenon in the classical world (Kremer apparently calls this a concert in support of Russians rather than a protest--which seems like semantics to us). Here are three from the past few years alone, that are worth remembering...
Orchestra at The Hague central station
Flashmobs are as good a device as any for protest, and in 2010 the Dutch Hague Philharmonic Orchestra took to the central railway station and the music of Leonard Bernstein to vent their fury at the proposed 20 per cent cut in government arts subsidies.
The cello smasher, Johannes Kreidler
A German composer was so outraged in 2012 at the proposed merger of two German orchestras--one in Baden-Baden, one in Stuttgart--that at the end of a concert at the Donaueschingen Music Festival he strode onstage, seized a cello from an apparently dumbfounded musician (though there are suspicions that this was a previously-organized "happening"), and in a deliberately ugly gesture proceeded to smash it to smithereens. All of which was caught on film.
The pianist in Taksim Square, June 2013
German pianist Davide Martello decided that music was an expressive way to underline the aspirations of the protestors in the recent riots in Istanbul. He gave a rather lovely concert in the middle of Taksim Square, itself the epicenter of the discontent. Both protestors and police reportedly enjoyed themselves, and the violence was temporarily calmed. He even brought his own piano.
© 2024 Classicalite All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.
