I wrote a comprehensive portrait of Berufsverband Musik TKV Sachsen, the professional body of musicians and music educators in the German state of Saxonia, for the Kulturmanagement Network magazine. The nine board members, Stephanie Dathe, Christoph Geibel, Nikolai Kähler, Felicitas Ressel, Anne-Kathrin Ludwig, Christiane Vogel, Sophia Schulz, Victoria Flock, and Christian Scheibler, are doing a great job in cultural administration, political lobbyism, and advocacy of freelancers. See pp. 78–85 of the current issue, which also contains a number of other noteworthy contributions, dealing with multiple aspects and challenges of the cultural sector in East Germany. Please have a look!
Read This (At the Risk of Dismay)
I am deeply moved by Friede Merz‘s strong and courageous statement on abuse of power in German music universities and the jazz scene in particular. Her personal report is disturbing, alarming, and illuminating at the same time. It should be taken as a wake-up call by everybody involved in academic administration and professional music education. #musicmetoo
A Little Research on DSCH Passacaglias
My examination of Dmitri Shostakovich‘s passacaglias of the 1940s, a conference paper from two years ago, has now been published in Vol. 13 of Shostakovich Studies, edited by Bernd Feuchtner. Included are discussions of the passacaglia movements from the Eighth Symphony, Op. 65, Second Piano Trio, Op. 67, Third String Quartet, Op. 73, and First Violin Concerto, Op. 77. See this link for more information on the volume.
Vokalsystem Anniversary Concert
Happy to perform with Vokalsystem Berlin, Johannes David Wolff and Lidia Kalendareva again this weekend! In two concerts celebrating the decennial of the choir, we will present a versatile programme with music by Johannes Brahms, Max Reger, Ralph Vaughan Williams, and Ēriks Ešenvalds, as well as a new work by Yannick Wittmann, Lidia’s own Vocalise, and the impressive cycle The Passing of the Year by Jonathan Dove. If you are around, please join us at Heilig-Kreuz-Kirche in Berlin-Kreuzberg!
» Friday, 14 July 2023, 8 pm
» Saturday, 15 July 2023, 6 pm
» Tickets available at €12 / €8
Of Beauties, Kisses and Nightingales
The probably most popular composition of female authorship, even though this fact evades the attention of many classical musicians, is the song Bésame mucho by the Mexican composer-pianist Consuelo Velázquez (c. 1916–2005), written in the mid-1930s, and subsequently becoming a worldwide success through all musical styles and genres. The initial melody is presumably based on the 1911 piece Quejas, ó la maja y el ruiseñor, part of the Goyescas piano cycle by Catalan composer Enrique Granados, which he adopted as an aria for the opera of the same name a few years later. Consuelito, as she was called by her friends and family, provided the tune with soulful lyrics and a relaxed bolero rhythm, and transformed it into a regular periodical theme, while maintaining its melancholic mood and Phrygian-inflected harmony.
