Klarinet Archive - Posting 000154.txt from 2008/06

From: "danyel" <rab@-----.de>
Subj: [kl] Re: [spam] [kl] A piece on Giora Feidman from a Hungarian newspaper
Date: Mon, 30 Jun 2008 18:33:02 -0400

Hello, thanks for posting this.
Yes, I agree, Feidman is the Dalai Lama of Klezmer rather than king or
anything. Actually, he is not a klezmer at all but -- just like this
obnoxious Lama -- an idiot pretending to represent something that neither he
nor any of his supporters knows about and has as such been adopted by
ignorant journalists and other outsiders with questionable motives. The
popularity of both figures has always been a complete mystery to me.
Anybody out there who knows Brantveyn and Tarras who would defend the notion
that Feidman is an actual klezmer?

Best wishes,
danyel

www.echoton.de/clar.html

----- Original Message -----
From: "Daniel Leeson" <dnleeson@-----.net>
To: "klarinet@-----.org>
Sent: Monday, June 30, 2008 10:56 PM
Subject: [spam] [kl] A piece on Giora Feidman from a Hungarian newspaper

> Here is an interesting piece about Giora Feidman that appeared in a
> Hungarian newspaper. The text is by Thomas Schramm, who is a resident of
> Budapest. There is nothing startling in the piece, but it does show
> Feidman
> as something much more than merely a Klezmer clarinetist, though if I
> could
> do what he does, I'd revel in doing nothing else for the rest of my life.
>
> Dan Leeson
>
> Monday, 30 June 2008
>
> They have known each other for 20 years and now they are also working
> together: Christa Bartesch, a Budapest-based artist and Giora Feidman, the
> "king of klezmer". Ahead of a concert in Budapest, the clarinettist
> provided
> musical accompaniment to works of art at an exhibition held by Christa
> Bartesch in her own studio.
>
> The musician is best known for the Oscar-winning film music to Schindler's
> List and could imagine working with Steven Spielberg again: "Steven's a
> nice
> guy, and a clarinetist like me." The 72 year-old was full of zest for life
> during his visit, explaining: "I don't feel tired. Society shouldn't
> dictate
> at what age we should retire. When my father died, he had played in the
> morning the same day. God gave me these hands and I will make use of them
> for as long as I can," he
> said.
>
> Through his music he would like to convey to the audience the conviction
> that he has reached in the course of his eventful life: "We are all a
> large
> family and all have just one wish: to express ourselves through music
> because it is the language of the soul. It makes no difference what kind
> of
> music it is. If you were to say that
> klezmer is only understandable to Jews, then you could also say that pizza
> is only for Italians." Everyone can understand Bartesch's pictures, he
> says,
> even if at first they may appear to one or other of us just as
> bright-coloured blotches. According to Feidman, Bartesch brings us
> "another
> dimension".
>
> Painting is to Bartesch what music is to Feidman. "For me my paintings are
> mainly about colour, because that is what I experience when I paint. I see
> my pictures as a kind of medium to express my experiences. And Giora does
> the same with his music," explained the artist from Germany, who came to
> Budapest many years ago and regards it as her home. Feidman also feels at
> home in Budapest, as he does everywhere in the world. "To me it doesn't
> make
> a difference where I am. It shouldn't make a difference to anyone, because
> all over the world mothers sing to their babies, giving them the same
> spiritual nourishment that we all carry in us."
>
> Travelling does not bother him at all even at his ripe age: "I get on the
> plane and I fall asleep even before it takes off," he explains, raising a
> laugh from the audience. He chuckles quietly to himself, and one
> increasingly gets the impression that he is a kind of Dalai Lama of
> klezmer,
> with red braces instead of a crimson robe. Feidman, too,
> spreads a message of peace, which he makes understandable to everyone,
> avoiding complicated sentences. It would not be surprising if some people
> left Bartesch's studio on this afternoon with a feeling of spiritual
> lightness.
>
> Dan Leeson
> dnleeson@-----.net
> SKYPE: dnleeson
>
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------
>

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