What's On / Proms by Day
FRIDAY 21 AUGUST 2009
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5.15pm Proms Literary Festival Edward Stourton talks to Rana Mitter about how the literature of the Middle East has informed his understanding of the region – and selects his personal choice of readings. Edited version broadcast on Radio 3 during the interval of Prom 50
Prom 48: West-Eastern Divan Orchestra
- Date Friday 21 August 2009
- Time 7.00pm - c9.15pm
- Venue Royal Albert Hall
- Tickets £12 - £54 price band C or Prom for £5
- Broadcast at 7.30pm on BBC Four and live on BBC Radio 3. Available on demand for the following week. Digital viewers can press the red button to view Maestro Cam.
- This programme is no longer available.
Watch this Prom in MaestroCam - with commentary by Maestro's Peter Stark
It was in 1999 in Weimar, Germany, that the Israeli pianist-conductor Daniel Barenboim and the Palestinian-American cultural historian, the late Edward Said, jointly founded the West–Eastern Divan Orchestra – a unique ensemble bringing together young players from both sides of the Arab–Israeli divide in what Barenboim insists is not 'an orchestra for peace' but 'an orchestra against ignorance', and which is now universally acclaimed as simply a superb orchestra, however you label it.
To open our weekend celebrating the Divan's 10th anniversary, we return to its roots in Weimar, where, as the city's music director for over a decade, Liszt championed the works of both Wagner and Berlioz.
- Liszt Les préludes (17 mins)
- Wagner Tristan and Isolde - Prelude and Liebestod (18 mins)
- interval
- Berlioz Symphonie fantastique (55 mins)
- West-Eastern Divan Orchestra
- Daniel Barenboim conductor
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Prom 49: West-Eastern Divan Orchestra
- Date Friday 21 August 2009
- Time 10.15pm - c11.30pm
- Venue Royal Albert Hall
- Tickets £10 - £15 price band D or Prom for £5
- Broadcast Live on BBC Radio 3. Available as audio on demand for the following week.
- This programme is no longer available.
Bicentenary composer Felix Mendelssohn was only 16 when he wrote his masterly Octet: sprinkled with the same fairy dust as his music for A Midsummer's Night Dream (Prom 72), the airy, scampering Scherzo is said to have been inspired by lines from Goethe, the great German poet whom he had met in Weimar at the age of 12 and whose Persian-inspired collection, West–Eastern Divan, gave tonight's orchestra its name.
The 2009 recipient of the Moses Mendelssohn Medal – named after the composer's philosopher grandfather and awarded to campaigners for peace and tolerance – Daniel Barenboim conducts Berg's musical monument to friendship with an ensemble including his violinist son Michael and his pianist protégé Karim Said (a relative of the orchestra's co-founder, the late Edward Said).
- There will be no interval
- Mendelssohn Octet (32 mins)
- Berg Chamber Concerto (38 mins)
- Michael Barenboim violin
- Karim Said piano
- Members of West-Eastern Divan Orchestra
- Daniel Barenboim conductor
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2009 Calendar
| S | M | T | W | T | F | S |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| July | ||||||
| 17 | 18 | |||||
| 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 |
| 26 | 27 | 28 | 29 | 30 | 31 | |
| August | ||||||
| 1 | ||||||
| 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 |
| 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 |
| 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 |
| 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 | 27 | 28 | 29 |
| 30 | 31 | |||||
| September | ||||||
| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | ||
| 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 |
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