Thursday, October 19, 2006

***At John F. Kennedy Center For The Arts, Russian Conductors Lead Former Cold War Enemies In Protracted Celebration Of Dmitri Shostakovich Centennial

IMPORTANT UPDATE: Mstislav Rostropovich has unfortunately cancelled his Shostakovich Centennial concerts with the National Symphony Orchestra, in order to undergo medical tests and evaluations. Most of the artists and repertoire originally scheduled for these concerts have been changed, with the hope that Maestro Rostropovich will lead these programs in a future season. However, Yo-Yo Ma will still appear in the Nov. 11 concert.

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Wednesday, October 25, 2006
Kennedy Center Concert Hall

Kirov Orchestra of the Mariinsky Theatre, Petersburg, Russian Federation, Europe

Valery Gergiev, music director
Alexander Toradze, piano

Tchaikovsky: Piano Concerto No. 1
Shostakovich: Symphony No. 11 (“The Year 1905”)

Click this link for expert program notes to this Shostakovich work.

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Thursday to Saturday, November 2-4, 2006
Kennedy Center Concert Hall

National Symphony Orchestra, Washington, D.C., United States, North America

Mstislav Rostropovich, former NSO music director
Maxim Vengerov, violin

Shostakovich: Violin Concerto in A minor
Shostakovich: Symphony No. 10 in E minor

Click this link for expert program notes to these Shostakovich works.

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Thursday to Saturday, November 9-11, 2006
Kennedy Center Concert Hall

National Symphony Orchestra, Washington, D.C., United States, North America

Mstislav Rostropovich, former NSO music director
Martha Argerich, piano & Steven Hendrickson, trumpet (Nov. 9-10)
Yo-Yo Ma, cello (Nov. 11)

Shostakovich: Festive Overture (Nov. 9 & 10)
Shostakovich: Piano Concerto No. 1 in C minor (for Piano, String, Orchestra, and Trumpet) (Nov. 9 & 10)
Shostakovich: Cello Concerto No. 1 in E-flat major (Nov. 11)
Shostakovich: Symphony No. 8 in C minor (Nov. 9, 10, & 11)

Click this link for expert program notes to these Shostakovich works.

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Saturday, March 24, 2007
Kennedy Center Concert Hall

National Philharmonic of Russia, Moscow, Russian Federation, Europe

Vladimir Spivakov, music director
Olga Kern, piano

Shostakovich: Festive Overture
Rachmaninoff: Piano Concerto No. 2
Shostakovich: Symphony No. 5

Click this link for expert program notes to these Shostakovich works.

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Click here for On An Overgrown Path's posting on NATO's use of 31,000 rounds of DU (depleted uranium) weaponry during the Southeastern European Balkan Kosovo conflict in the late 1990s.





















This sculpture of Shostakovich's head, by Russian artist Ernst Neizvestny, was one of Mstislav Rostropovich's late cold war gifts to the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts and the American people. This gift occured at a time when the military-industrial complexes of both the United States and the Soviet Union were each aiming tens of thousands of nuclear-tipped missles at each other's major population centers.

Photo credit: Via http://www.cannes.artinfo.ru/ru/exhibition.htm With thanks. (This is a very interesting contemporary visual arts website.)

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