“CHRONICLE OF CURRENT EVENTS” – WORLD PREMIERE

Gidon Kremer and Kremerata Baltica have been advocating the music of Mieczysław Weinberg for many years now. This year we are celebrating the centenary of his birth with many concerts devoted to his music.

Our newest project called “Chronicle of Current Events” will be premiered in Amsterdam during the Holland Festival.

This multi-media project that combines music and video adopts it’s name from the hand-typed independent magazine circulating in Soviet Union during the 1960s and 70s, reporting the violations of human rights by the Soviet government. In this project we tell a story of Mieczysław Weinberg through his music, exploring the parallels with modern lives.

Gidon Kremer says about this project: “The idiom of Mieczysław Weinberg is highly emotional and honest. First I got to know his music, later I also discovered a personal agreement: Weinberg’s fate was in many ways similar to my father’s, who also suffered from the Holocaust. With Chronicle of Current Events it was my intention to tell the life story of Weinberg through his music. First I imagined it to be a semi-theatrical production. In my youth, being passionate about theater, I dreamt about becoming a director. These days I realized, that for the serious intentions I had regarding this “Homage”, my skills and enthusiasm will not be sufficient, so I looked for help and did approach the outstanding director Kirill Serebrennikov  with my “self-made” script. It was Kirill who suggested to tell the story in a different way – building a bridge to our time and I immediately saw his approach and potential in a much stronger (while different) light. Kirill suggested me a cooperation with his assistants and students – something I immediately endorsed having met them in Moscow. This way Valery Pecheykin , Artyom Firsanov and Daniil Orlov became our associates.

In Chronicle of Current Events music and video feed each other, but not in the usual way in which music accompanies what is shown on the canvas. Weinberg’s music comes first in our project. It forms a source of inspiration for the video artists, and enables them to reflect our time.

The choice of music at Chronicle of Current Events , which I made myself, will be performed live, and consists of parts of symphonies for chamber orchestra and some Weinberg film music in addition to solo works and chamber music.

My personal wish is to appeal to the public with an open mind and to appeal to everyone’s heart and imagination. I want to remind people, through music and images, that there is a lot of injustice in our world. I try to create some empathy for that.”

The world-premiere of the “Chronicle of Current Events” is going to happen during the Holland Festival at the Muziekgebouw aan ‘t IJ. After our premiere in Amsterdam, this project will be performed this year during the Sion Festiva and Kremerata Baltica Festival and in such concert halls as Frankfurt’s Alte Oper and Hamburg’s Elbphilharmonie.

 

The project is created in a coproduction with Holland Festival, Alte Oper Frankfurt, Konzerthaus Berlin, Leipzig Gewandhaus and Kremerata Baltica.

 

For more information about the times, and tickets, please visit the Events page.