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Quartet For The End Of Time
2018-10-25

Quartet For The End Of Time

By Olivier Messiaen (1908 – 1992)

25 October 2018

Odeion

19:30

“THE IDEA OF THE END OF TIME AS THE END OF PAST AND FUTURE AND THE BEGINNING OF ETERNITY”

Anmari van der Westhuizen and Samson Diamond (members of the renowned Odeion String Quartet), will join with the award-winning soloists Grethe Nöthling and Danrè Strydom to perform one of the 20th century’s most compelling chamber music works, Olivier Messiaen’s Quartet for the End of Time. These musicians need no introduction to Bloemfontein audiences.

Composed while he was a prisoner of war, Messiaen's Quartet has continually wowed audiences since its creation. The oppressive conditions within which the work was conceived - set against the backdrop of wartime conditions in Nazi Germany - contribute to the work’s inner narrative. In this unsettling time of global political and social uncertainty, we aim to reframe this work from the past in order to contemplate the present. Music woven together with other art forms elicit and explain a range of emotions where words often fail.

A selection of striking WWII photos will be projected behind the musicians - reflecting the theme and history of the composition.

About the composition
Olivier Messiaen (1908 - 92)
Quatour pour le fin du temps (1940 - 41)

Olivier Messiaen’s Quartet for the End of Time was written in perhaps the most incongruous spot any great score has been composed in: an unheated barrack in Stalag VIII-A, a German prisoner-of-war camp, during the second winter of World War 2. Messiaen wrote this mystical quartet for the instruments available in the camp (clarinet, violin, cello, and piano) in a setting that is arguably among the least conducive for creative work.

The quartet is Messiaen's musical depiction of and rumination on Revelation 10:1-7, which the composer included as a heading to the score:

“I saw a mighty angel descending from heaven, clad in mist, having around his head a rainbow. His face was like the sun, his feet like pillars of fire. He placed his right foot on the sea, his left on the earth, and standing thus on the sea and the earth, he lifted his hand toward heaven and swore by Him who liveth forever and ever, saying: "There shall be time no longer, but at the day of the trumpet of the seventh angel the mystery of God shall be consummated."

ADMISSION

  • R120 (adults)
  • *R80 (pensioners)
  • *R70 (UFS staff)
  • *R50 (students, learners and block bookings of 10+)

Tickets available at Computicket or online at http://online.computicket.com/web/

*Please note that tickets for pensioners, students, learners and UFS staff can only be purchased at a Computicket outlet (Shoprite Checkers) or at the doors since a valid card or ID has to be presented to qualify for the above-mentioned discount.

ENQUIRIES
Ninette Pretorius (tel. 051 401 2504)


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UFS Department of Music presents - Russian soprano EVGENIA GREKOVA and IRINA PURYSHINSKAJA (piano)



UFS Department of Music presents
Russian soprano EVGENIA GREKOVA and IRINA PURYSHINSKAJA (piano)
Thursday, 27 August 2009
Odeion
19:30

The Russian soprano Evgenia Grekova, born in Kurgan, visited South Africa for the first time in 2006 to compete in the Unisa Vodacom International Singing Competition in Pretoria. She won the concert category and four prizes in total.

Grekova studied music in Moscow and Karlsruhe in Germany, and attended master classes by some of the world"s most famous singers, including Elizabeth Schwarzkopf, Edith Mathis, Mirella Freni and Marilyn Horne.

While still a student she made her professional debut with the Stuttgart State Opera. In 2001 she joined the ensemble of the Nürnberg Opera for four years, and built a substantial repertoire in German opera houses, including operas by Bizet, Gluck, Humperdinck, Mozart, Nicolai, Offenbach, Nino Rota and Richard Strauss.

It was during this period, in 2002, that she was invited to make her debut in two Wagner roles (in The Ring and in Tannhauser) at the Bayreuth Festival, which prompted the Neue Zürcher Zeitung to praise her performance as “the vocal miracle of the evening”.

From 2001 she entered several international competitions and won numerous prizes – most recently in the Bido Sayao Competition in Sao Paulo (2009).

She has already sung under the direction of well-known conductors such as Philippe Auguin, Adam Fischer, Antonio Pappano, Helmuth Rilling, Wolfgang Sawallisch and Christian Thielemann. Grekova appeared in concert with top European orchestras, including the WD Rundfunk- and SW Rundfunk Symphonie Orchester, Nürnberger Symphoniker and the Bayrische Kammerorchester.

As a concert artist she was invited to the Richard Strauss Lieder Festival, and was immediately hailed by the press: “An important singer has arrived, in concert and opera.”

With this concert Evgenia will be accompanied by renowned solo and chamber pianist, Irina Puryshinskaja. After her studies at the Tchaikovsky Conservatory and in Germany, Irina gave several solo and chamber music concerts in Germany, Munich, Belgium, Austria, Switzerland, Italy, the former Soviet Union, the Middle East and China. In 1996 she received a special prize as best Lied pianist at the XII International Robert Schumann Competition (Zwickau) and also took several prizes in other international competitions. Irina has been professor of piano at the Conservatory of Vorarlberg (Austria) since 2000. She is currently professor in piano at the Landeskonservatorium Feldkirch (Austria).

PROGRAMME:
RICHARD STRAUSS
Stänchen
Traum durch die Dämmerung
Die Nacht
Hat gesagt – bleibt’s nicht dabei
Meinem Kinder
Schlechtes Wetter
Morgen!

LEONARD BERNSTEIN
“I hate music!”

FRANZ SCHUBERT
Suleika 1
Der Fluss
Auf dem Wasser zu singen
Gretchen am Spinnrade
Nach und Träume
Im Abendrot

SERGEI RACHMANINOV
U moego okna
Ne poj krasawitza pri mne
Siren’
Vocalise
Sdes horosho
Wesennie wody

ADMISSION:
R100 (adults)
R60 (pensioners, students and learners)
Tickets available at Computicket (at all Shoprite / Checkers shops, Mimosa Mall information desk) and at the doors.

ENQUIRIES:
Ninette Pretorius (tel. 051 - 401 2504)




 

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