Showing posts with label Gabriela Montero. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Gabriela Montero. Show all posts

Sunday, May 05, 2019

Music and politics don't mix, right? Wrong.

Three cheers for Rhinegold and Classical Music Magazine, now home to a new podcast entitled Music Plus, hosted by music journalist and human rights activist Chris Gunness. Chris used to work for the UN in the Middle East, but he is now back in the UK and interviewing the musicians who burn to change the world. Music Plus focuses on the role that classical music can play in social justice and also supports the magazine's efforts to inform and educate re mental health for musicians. 

Among Chris's interviewees to date are the pianist Gabriela Montero, who speaks powerfully about the situation in her native Venezuela; Chineke! founder Chichi Nwanoku; Mark Wigglesworth on the responsibilities of the conductor, and much more besides. Do have a listen. In the meantime, I wanted to interview Chris himself about why he does what he does – and why classical music has lagged so far behind its potential in this invaluable field. JD


Gabriela Montero: free improvisation on Venezuela





JD: Chris, congratulations on this splendid new series and thanks for talking to us. First of all, why do you think a podcast about music and social justice is necessary? What do you hope it will achieve?

CG: I created the Music Plus Podcast because classical music and social responsibility have come of age. After years or retreating from society, classical music, at last, is re-engaging with issues of social justice; and I wanted both to showcase the work of classical musicians who are passionate about making our world a more just place and also to encourage others in the industry to do more. 

Pop music has been promoting the rights of the most disadvantaged for decades. I attended the Live Aid concert in Wembley Stadium in 1985 which was watched by 40 per cent of the world’s population and which raised billions to combat starvation in Ethiopia. Look at the black musicians who provided the sound track for the American civil rights movement. 

By contrast – and despite notable examples -- classical music is only now beginning to look more seriously at its social responsibilities; and the truth is that although it’s easy to ridicule elitist musical institutions, many of those in the UK today are doing transformative work with some of the most disadvantaged communities in the country. I wanted to highlight this, while at the same time, pricking the consciences of those who should be doing more. 

It’s also been important for me to draw in younger audiences and to show them that classical music resonates with their ideals of a better world.  And already youth audiences are listening in.


JD: I don’t know of any other initiative quite like this. Have we in the music world been too slow to wake up to the potential for a stronger role for music within society?

CG: The answer to your question is a triple fortissimo, resounding YES. Music is deeply embedded in our lives at all levels and there is massive potential for classical music to create change within our society; on a personal level with music therapy for example, but also at a societal level.  My interview with Chi-chi Nwanoku, who founded “Chineke!”, Europe’s first majority black and minority ethnic orchestra, highlights this beautifully. 

Chi-chi has broken down barriers and destroyed stereotypes, drawing in younger more diverse audiences, transforming the classical music landscape forever. It is this sort of cutting-edge work that I feature. Certainly there’s no other podcast that showcases world class musicians with a burning sense of social justice. And by the way, the podcast also supports a campaign by Classical Music Magazine to promote mental health in the classical music industry:


The Chineke! Chamber Players in part of Schubert's 'Trout' Quintet


JD: Tell us something about your line-up so far. Why have you chosen these particular interviewees? 

CG: Beyond Chi-chi, I interviewed Mark Wigglesworth on the responsibilities of the conductor, both within musical institutions and in society more broadly; Gabriela Montero – Amnesty International’s first Honorary Consul -- on the role of music in promoting human rights; James Rose, the world’s first professional conductor with cerebral palsy on disability and stigma; Julian Lloyd-Webber on universal music education and Dr Cayenna Ponchione-Bailey who recently brought to the UK the Afghan Women’s Orchestra, surely the world’s bravest ensemble, who were attacked by a suicide bomber simply for playing. These are all musicians, passionate about social justice and whose work is ground-breaking and inspirational.  


JD: You’re a musician, but you worked for the UN in the Middle East. Tell us about your path into that - and back from it? What have your experiences there have shown you and what do you hope to do with that knowledge now?

CG: I decided to work with refugees in the Middle East because after 23 years in the BBC writing about social justice, I wanted to go and do it! When you work with people who’ve been robbed of everything – their land, the property, their history – when you work with communities who are forgotten and marginalised, you begin to think deeply about those things that bind us, the common humanity that unites us. You search for and hold tight to those things that can bring joy and a sense of values amid the most terrible loss. Music and all it engenders is one of those things and I hope that each and every edition of the Music Plus Podcast illustrates this in one way or another.

 The Afghan Women's Orchestra perform in Zürich


JD: “Music and politics don’t mix” - your thoughts on this little maxim, please?

CG: It’s demonstrably wrong. We know that music was an integral element of public life in ancient societies and music has been an element of the political order throughout human history; think of Protestant and Catholic music during the Reformation; think of music and nationalism in the nineteenth century; think of the musical conversation between Shostakovich and Stalin! Music has always moulded society and vice versa. 

Moreover, music retreats from society at its peril: it will be condemned to irrelevance. Conversely society is impoverished when music and musicians retreat; they bring so much richness. That’s why I am delighted that classical musicians are re-engaging and why I believe the time is ripe for a podcast that focuses on how classical music is transforming our communities.  


Wednesday, July 13, 2016

Prime Minister engages with the musical community as never before

Apart from being remembered as the man who drove the UK over the cliff, Prime Minister David Cameron may also go down in history as the one who inspired the most music. All because he left his mic on after he made his speech on Monday saying he'd be leaving on Wednesday, and hummed a little tune as he walked inside - presumably singing a song as he waved us goodbye.

Since then the musical community has been very busy trying to identify the tune: The West Wing? Tannhäuser? It's difficult to tell, so instead, some exciting and creative musicians have been trying to turn it into something new, spurred on by a challenge from Classic FM.

Here's the pianist Gabriela Montero's splendid Bachian improvisation.



Composer Thomas Hewitt Jones has created an atmospheric cello lament, written and recorded between midnight and 2am on 12 July. He's had more than 140,000 hits already.



And last but by no means least, here's a clever piece of counterpoint, since Dave Cam is most definitely gone with the wind.




Our new Prime Minister, Theresa May
Is taking over later today,
Whatever happens, let her hum on her way... 

Ironically, the First Night of the Proms on Friday features one of the works she chose when she was on Radio 4's Desert Island Discs a couple of years ago: the Elgar Cello Concerto. Did they know something we didn't?

[A little update: the headline on this piece is in fact a joke. J. O. K. E. Irony and all that. One shouldn't have to point this out, but I guess we live in interesting times. One of the best ways to navigate through daily life in 'interesting times' is to try having a dark-hued belly-laugh at them. If it helps, good. If it doesn't, well, there it is.]

Tuesday, November 12, 2013

How improvising can change your brain



Fascinating stuff, this. Above, Gabriela Montero improvises on the Goldberg Variations theme. I've always listened to her (and many others) and wondered "How does she do that?" Now Neuroscience 2013, the annual meeting of the Society for Neuroscience, has released some information about what improvising can do for the brain, and vice-versa...

(Apologies for simply running the press release. Am short of time at present.)


To Change Your Brain: Improvise, Improvise, and Improvise Some More
With practice, specific brain circuits are strengthen and music flows

Brain circuits involved in musical improvisation are shaped by systematic training, suggest a new study presented at Neuroscience 2013, the annual meeting of the Society for Neuroscience and the world’s largest source of emerging news about brain science and health.

Researchers also found that more experienced improvisers show higher connectivity between three major regions of the brain’s frontal lobe while improvising. This suggests that the generation of meaningful music during improvisation can become highly automated —performed with little conscious attention, reported lead author Ana Pinho, MS, of the Karolinska Institutet.

“Our research explored whether the brain can be trained to achieve greater proficiency in improvisation,” Pinho said. “The lower activity in frontal brain regions that we saw in trained improvisers is interesting, and one could speculate that it is related to the feeling of ‘flow.’ This is the feeling that many musicians report feeling during improvisation – when music comes without conscious thought or effort.”

Improvisational training entails the acquisition of long-term stores of musical patterns and cognitive strategies to aid in their expressive, skillful combination. To test brain activity during improvisation, researchers worked with 39 pianists with a wide range of both classical piano training and training in jazz improvisation. They used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), which images blood flow in different parts of the brain.

While the pianists improvised for brief periods on a 12-key MRI compatible piano keyboard, researchers tracked activity in the frontal lobe. More experienced improvisers showed a combination of higher connectivity and lower overall regional activity during improvisation. Higher connectivity also reflected extensive reorganization of functional connections within the regions of the frontal lobe that control motion.

According to the researchers, the extensive connectivity within the frontal lobe of experienced improvisers may allow the musicians to seamlessly generate meaningful re-combinations of music.

“This study raises interesting questions for future research, including how and to what extent creative behaviors can be learned and automated,” said Pinho.
 

Monday, December 17, 2012

Gabriela Montero improvises in memory of the 20 children

Sometimes there are simply no words to express our feelings. That's where music comes in. In memory of the 20 small children and six adults gunned down in a school in Newtown, Connecticut, the other day, Gabriela Montero has gone to her piano and improvised this.



In case anyone missed Obama's speech, here is the full text.

Saturday, November 10, 2012

Gabriela Montero plays the Grieg Concerto - aged 11

Gabriela Montero has digitised and uploaded to Youtube a video of herself in her prodigy days in Venezuela, aged 11, playing the Grieg Piano Concerto. She says it's the first time it's been unearthed since its original broadcast. She was already a seasoned performer by then, of course, having made her concerto debut at the age of eight. It's wonderful to see and hear, especially if you know her remarkable artistry today, because her own sound is already there - a little like meeting a cute, fuzzy lion cub with the prescience indicated by very big paws. Here are the first two parts - she's going to upload the last movement shortly.