EDWARD W. SAID DAYS 2020
CONCERT: SHOSTAKOVICH, GUBAIDULINA, LIGETI
- Special Event
Artists
Gilbert Nouno
Sound Design and Synthesizer
Students of the Barenboim-Said Akademie
Program
Johann Sebastian Bach
Orgelbüchlein BWV 599–644 (Arrangement for two pianos by György Kurtág)
Dmitri Schostakowitsch
String Quartet No. 8 in C minor Op. 110
Sofia Gubaidulina
Vivente – non vivente for Synthesizer
György Ligeti
Sonata for Solo Viola
Following Elizabeth Wilson’s lecture on Shostakovich, students and faculty of the Barenboim-Said Akademie explore the “double-speak” of composers of the Soviet bloc. Out of Bach’s music, Kurtág creates delicate miniatures for two pianists. Shostakovich dedicates his brooding eighth string quartet to the victims of fascism. Gubaidulina, blacklisted in 1979 by Tikhon Khrennikov at the Sixth Congress of the Union of Soviet Composers, uses brazen electronic experimentalism in Vivente – non vivente to subvert Soviet authority. Nearly four decades after fleeing Hungary in 1956, Ligeti looks back to go forward, using Renaissance, Baroque, Eastern European folk music, and jazz to create his Sonata for Solo Viola, a capstone of the 20th century.
In addition to lectures and music, the exhibition Dry, featuring works by photographer Abdo Shanan, will be on view during the Edward W. Said Days 2020 in the lobby of the Barenboim-Said Akademie.