Member News
Live DMA: International Concert Venue Congress
The International Concert Venue Congress at Primavera Pro is one of the main annual professional meetings for live music associations and venues representatives in Europe and, hence, the perfect place to discuss current challenges in the live music sector.
On the agenda this year: How to gain better recognition for electronic music all over Europe? How to make venues a safer place for the audience, and especially for women? How to use venues.
A soft and graceful sound delivering prayers for peace
On August 6, 1945, a made-in-USA Baldwin piano was exposed to radiation from the atomic bomb dropped over the City of Hiroshima, which claimed 140,000 people’s lives by the end of that year. Although the player of that piano, Akiko Kawamoto, 19, was among the victims, her piano survived and its’ restored sound has been attracting the world’s pianists such as Martha Argerich. The first recording made on Akiko’s piano by American pianist, Peter Serkin, was released recently.
Baby Akiko and Piano (Credit Hope Project)
Akiko was born on May 25, 1926 in Los Angeles where her father, Genkichi, worked. From the piano’s fabrication number, 54444, it was also identified as being made that same year. Since a photograph, taken on December 19, 1926, shows 7-month-old Akiko with a Christmas tree and the piano, one can assume that the piano was purchased to celebrate the arrival of this new family member, especially as Genkichi and his wife Shizuko had waited for 4 years for a child.
In 1933, the family moved back to Hiroshima, Shizuko’s home town, just in time for Akiko to enter primary school in Japan. Akiko started keeping a diary at age 6, first to learn how to write Japanese. In almost every page she describes her piano lessons and practice. Although she never mentioned her aspiration to become a concert pianist, Akiko was a dedicated learner and developed a musical ear. In an entry about a concert she attended, she wrote, “the pianist played with virtuosity yet produced a very soft and graceful sound.”
Due to the deteriorated lifestyle of civilians due to the military situation of Japan in the World War II, which began in the early 1944, Akiko wrote little about the piano and most of her comments were about her frustration of not being able to eat properly and to sacrifice her study for a service provided through physical labour.
When the A-Bomb was dropped, Akiko was on her routine service work in the central part of Hiroshima City and died the following day. Although her house was 2,5 km outside of Hiroshima City, Akiko’s piano was severely damaged by the bomb blast and its’ scars are still clearly visible on the surface.
The piano was kept untouched until 2005 when it was handed to a family friend, Ms Tomie Futakuchi (now a Representative of Hope Project), and was restored by the tuner Mr Hiroshi Sakaibara on the occasion of 60th anniversary event of the A-Bombing. Sakaibara, who kept the original pieces of piano as much as possible, observed the wear on the damper for the sustain pedal and said, “Akiko was very conscious of using to change the nuance of the sound.” Akiko’s survived younger brother also testified. “She loved playing Chopin.”
Akiko's piano repaired by Mr. Sakaibara (credit Hope Project)
The turning point for the Akiko’s piano to get to known by international pianists was in 2015, when Martha Argerich visited Hiroshima City to participate in the 70th anniversary event where she heard the piano being played by Mami Hagiwara, a pianist from Hiroshima who won the 1st prize in the International Piano Competition in Geneva in 2010. After the event, Argerich went up on the stage, looked at the piano, and played a Chopin’s Mazurka, Op67-2. “Akiko must have liked Chopin. It remembers so,” murmured Argerich.
The Hiroshima Symphony Orchestra also played an important role by providing their co-performing pianists with occasions to touch the Akiko’s piano, including Charles Richard-Hamelin, the 2nd Prize-winner of the Chopin International Piano Competition in 2015, and Peter Serkin, also known as the son of legendary pianist Rudolf Serkin.
Peter Serkin, who encountered the Akiko’s piano in 2017 during his visit to Hiroshima said, “this piano amazingly has a voice of its own, with its warm and human voice, which wants to sing. Its singing consoles us, and can also express a gratitude for life itself.” Serkin, without having prepared for it, spontaneously played pieces by Bach, Mozart and Chopin. His 45-minute recording was the first CD made on the Akiko’s Piano as “Music for Peace” (Kajimoto) in March, 2018, to allocate its profit to be used for conservation of the piano and charity events.
Argerich (photo credit Y. Koseki)
Argerich, who has been involved in the series of concerts to commemorate the A-Bomb as Amabassador for Peace by the Hiroshima Peace Orchestra, says "It is essential to keep memory alive, and I believe that music can be a powerful inspiration and support to achieve this." She is planning to perform in 2020, the year of the Tokyo Olympics, a new Piano Concerto by a Japanese composer Dai Fujikura, in which Akiko's piano will be used for the cadenza.
Akiko would have been 91 years old this year. Though having lost the owner, today Akiko’s piano delivers a prayer for peace with its soft and graceful sound to heaven and to all of us in the world.
More info:
When Argerich touched the Akiko's Piano for the first time in 2015
A documentary made by high school students on the Akiko's Piano
By Julie Saito
Fundación Encuentros Internacionales de Música Contemporánea (1968-2018)
“TOWARD THE 50th ANNIVERSARY” (1968-2018)
This year we celebrate 50 years of the Fundación Encuentros , argentine music institution devoted to the contemporary music, that was created in 1968 by the argentinean composer and conductor Alicia Terzian, who did it with the interest of projecting the argentine contemporary musical reality in the world through the International Music Council (NGO official partner of UNESCO).
She was an active member of the IMC, then Vice President and finally elected as MEMBER OF HONOR in the Ordinary General Assembly of the IMC held in 2003 with the participation of more than 100 countries of the 5 continents which we offered, with free admission, a great number of concerts, seminars, International meetings, composition contests of composition and piano, radio auditions.
The Encuentros Foundation celebrate 50 years approaching the most prestigious contemporary music composers and interpreters from all over the world as well as from our own country to the argentinean public since we project our actions to many argentine provinces.
We also celebrate 40th years of the 1st. International tournée of the Grupo Encuentros that she conduct and which is integrated ,now,by the most outstanding argentinean musicians.
Throught these 50th years and thank to the Alicia Terzian action during all this time, the Encuentros Foundation realized:
750 concerts in Argentina introducing over 260 artists among the most renowned soloists, chamber ensembles, choir and orchestra conductors , musicologist from the world and our country.
235 free admisión Seminars.
More of 340 works by argentinean composers were awarded and presented before international forums, tribunes and festivals of the ISCM.
The Grupo Encuentros under the conducting of Alicia Terzian offered 320 concerts in 27 international tournées playing in the most important festivals and theatres of the 5 continents and continue.
The Fundation Encuentros, thanks to the immense task carried out by Alicia Terzian organize integrating the Argentine Musical Council and inviting o participate the most renowned musiciens from the american continent from Uruguay, Brazil, Chile, Venezuela, Cuba, El Salvador, Mexico,Costa Rica and Bolivia.
Actively participation with the CAMU in the Pan American Forum of Music ,including France, Canada, USA, Mexico, Guatemala, Costa Rica, Republica Dominicana, Bolivia, Panamá, Honduras, Argentina, Cuba, Venezuela, Colombia, Ecuador, Brasil, Chile, Paraguay and Uruguay.
FIRST Forum about the ‘National identity of music of oral tradition, the creation and musical education’,coorganized with the CAMU and with the presence of musicians from the Toba, Guaraní, Calchaquí, Huarpes indigenous communities from Argentina as well as from Peru, Chile, Bolivia, Mexico and Uruguay.
ABOUT THE FUNDACION ENCUENTROS
The Fundacion Encuentros Internacionales de Musica Contemporánea start the activities in 1968 under the Artistic Direction of the argentine composer Alicia Terzian, to diffuse the argentine contemporary music as well as the latinamerican and universal composers and personalities of our time.
The Encuentros Foundation start their activities at the Leopoldo Lugones Hall of the ex San Martín Municipal Theatre at the middays and dedicated, during the first 3 years, diffuse the argentinean contemporary composers music .
In 1971 Terzian proposed the Modern Art Museum of Buenos Aires to compose an original musical work inspired on each one of the plastic artists participants of the exhibition organized by the Lorenzutti Foundation.
The Encuentros present for the first time the show called MUSIDANZA VISION gathering plastic artists with the original music written by Alicia Terzian including the dance that would be improvised by dancer and choreographer Susana Zimmerman.
In 1980 started the International Encuentros Festivals with the participation of the most important soloists,ensembles,conductors and composers from all over the world as well as from our country.
ACTIVITIES (1968-2018)
* 750 public concerts acting, among others :Grupo Encuentros, Encuentros Quartett, Ensemble Modern, Ivar Mikhashoff,Pierre-Yves Artaud, Medea Aprahamian,Kei Koito, Gwyn Williams, Dra. Carmen Cecilia PiñeroGil, Daniel Robellaz, Conjunto Ritmus, José Luis García del Busto, Tiffany Wu, Chinese Music Virtuosi, Youth Symphony Ofrchestra of Zurich, Luis Caparra, Yejin Gil, La Passeggiata, Cuarteto Aron, Diane Andersen, Adelma Gomez, Duo Haroutunian/Descharmes, Duo Mayumi Kameda-JeanJacques Balet, Akiko Ebi, Ensemble Paul Klee, Adrian Kreda, Christopher Guzman, New Docta Ensemble, Cuarteto Bozzini, Ensemble Mondrian, La Passegiatta,Gunter Neuhold, Rosen Milanov, Winston Choi, Sodi Braide, Nino Jvania, Stefano Mazzoleni, Thuring Brahm, Bozzini Quartett,Ensemble Mondrian,Aro Quartett,Taller Sonoro, Karlheinz Miklin Trio, Cromer ,Christopher Guzman,Musica Quantica,Gwyn Williuams,Eva Aroutunian,Philippe Chanon, Aline Piboule,Françoise Thinat, Lorenzo Soules, Imri Talgam,Gwyn Williams,Marianna Abrahamyan,Philippe Hattat.
235 Seminars of performance, musicology and composition directed by , among others: H. Lanchenmann, Ivo Malec; Alessandro Sbordoni; Paul Mefano, François Bernard Mache; G. Petrassi, L. Lombardi, G. Manzoni, Peter Maxwell Davies, Jorge Sarmientos, Jorge Pixinho; Franco Oppo, Marcello Pusceddu; Yves Prin, Michael Blake, Klaus Ager, Jack Body, Benet Casablancas, Guido Baggiani, Oscar Carmona, Jose Halac, Fernando Maglia, Rafael Gintoli, Françoise Thinat, Luis Maria Serra,Ricardo Dal Farra,.
* 2.550 weekly radio auditions : Radio Provincia, Radio Nacional Clásica, Radio Municipal and Radio Cultura Musical .
*27 international tournées of the Grupo Encuentros giving 320 concerts in the most important festivals of the five continents.
* 350 argentinean composers awarded in the Argentine Tribune of Composers (TRINAC) and Tribune of Electro Acoustic Music (TRIME) in the period 1979/1980
* 70 argentine composers works submitted before the International Tribune of Composers (ITC/TIC) from 1979 till 2006.
* 149 composers submitted to the annual Festivals of the International Society of Contemporary Music (SIMC/ISCM) from 1979 and continue.
* FIM Pan Ameriacan Forum (2001) with guests from France, Canada, USA, Mexico, Guatemala, Costa Rica, Republica Dominicana, Bolivia, Panamá, Honduras, Argentina, Cuba, Venezuela, Colombia, Ecuador, Brazil, Chile, Paraguay and Uruguay.
* ARTS films presentation that were awarded at the bi-annual Contests organized by Classifilms (Paris)
* Alberto Ginastera special prize at the International Contemporary Piano Contest in Orleans (France).
* 1st Forum of the National Identity of the music or oral tradition, the creation and the musical education (2001) with the participation of the Toba, Wichi, Chiriguano, Mapuche, Garaní, Calchaquí and Huarpeindigenous communities of Argentina as well as from Peru, Chile, Mexico and Uruguay.
* 24 Workshops concerning the Musical Education in the primary, secondary school and in the universities sponsored by the Ford Foundation of USA, Aeropuertos Argentina 2000 and the Rocca Foundation.
* Inter American Conference about Musical Education in Latin America with the presence of León Biriotti (Uruguay), Marlos Nobre and José Augusto Mannis (Brasil); Gabriel Matthey Correa (Chile), José Vicente Torres (Venezuela), Guido López Gavilán (Cuba), Guillermo Cáceres (El Salvador), María del Carmen Méndez Navas (Costa Rica) and Carlos Seoane Urioste (Bolivia).
* Concerts tournées of different ensembles ans soloists from abroad at the Pro Arte (Córdoba), Septiembre Musical Tucumano, Secretaria de Cultura (Salta), Teatro El Circulo (Rosario), Primavera de Música Contemporánea (Tigre).
OUR GOALS
* The argentinean, latin american and universal avantgard music creation, encouraging the commissions of works.
* Musical Education of the public and in schools
* Performance and researches of the XXth Century music
* Training of the musicians concerning the new techniques
* Inter relation of the contemporary music with other expressions of the history, culture, art , society.
* Edition of DVDs, CDs and films devoted to the contemporary music and musicians.
Encuentros Foundation,under the artistic direction of the composer Alicia Terzian is satisfied of having assumed the initiative of many other projects that enriched the musical life of country and helped it to be known and appraised in the world.
We are proud because we have achieved our goals thanks to the passion of our Artistic Director toward the argentinean musical community .
We want to thank all the important argentinean entrepreneurs, foreign institutions , Embassies ,personalities which accompanied us though all this years
Jorge Murekian Alicia Terzian Nidia Zimaro
President Artistic Director Secretary
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GRUPO ENCUENTROS
Was founded in 1978 and conducted by the argentine composer Alicia Terzian , with the purpose of giving a strong impulse to the knowledge of the music of contemporary argentine, Latin American and universal composers in the country and abroad .
The Grupo Encuentros is the unique group in the whole Latin America and one of the few in the world that has accomplished international concerts tournées.
The Grupo Encuentros has commissioned works to the most important argentine and foreign composers and has premiered them in their annual Encuentros International Festivas in Buenos Aires as well as abroad.
Since 1979 they realized 27 international tournees giving 320 concerts in the most important festivals and radios in the 5 continents: Radio France, Gulbenkian Foundation (Lisbon and Paris), Lille and Orleáns Festivals, Antidogma Música of Torino, Nuova Consonanza of Rome, Royal Festival Hall of London, Merkin Hall of New York, Chamber Theatre of Stuttgart, Diorama of Radio Suisse Romande, Contemporary Music Days of Radio España, Big Hall UNESCO (París), Bossendorfer Hall of Paris, Monday Evening Concerts de Los Angeles, San Francisco Contemporary Music Players, Neue Musik of Radio Austria, Prague Spring Festival, Bienal of Zagreb, Midem Classique of Cannes, Radio RTB of Brussels and Royal Conservatory of Brussels, Gaudeamus Foundation of Holland, Stedelejk Museum of Amsterdam, Gomidas Hall and Great Theatre of Yerevan, Montreal, Toronto, Río de Janeiro, San Pablo, Quito, México, Santiago de Chile, Pittsburg, Syracuse, Boulder, Greeley, San José, Porto, Yverdon, Bolzano, Trento, Rovereto, Cagliari, Rotterdam, Utrecht, La Haya, Danmarks Radio, Maastricht, Auditorio Nacional de Madrid, Irún, Ginebra, Bogotá, many German Radios: Köln, Frankfurt, Stuttgart,as well as the BBC of England, RAI Torino and Rome, URSS TV, and many cities in England, Holland, Austria, Switzerland, France, Warsaw, South Africa, Korea, Hong Kong, Taiwan, China, Paul Klee Museum of Berna, Granada, Sevilla, Barcelona, Friburgo, Lausanne, Aspekte Salzburg Festival, Milano, Neue Musik Festival of Luzern, Eindhoven, Paris, La Chaux de Fonds, Fine Arts Museum of Yerevan, Musica Insieme of Bologna, Orleans, Conservatory of Music of Geneva , Estonia.
Live DMA: Spring News
Spring has sprung and our network continues to grow and to flourish.
We are very happy to welcome Live Fin among our members. The Finnish association defends the common interests of different live music event organisers in Finland including venues, festivals and concert producers.
The activities of the first year of our #LiveStyleEurope project are starting to bear fruit and we feel the recognition and progress of our work on a European scale.
Busy as usual, we are really excited to present you what we have been up to during the last couple of months and to announce our activities for this spring season that we hope to be marked by positive change for the European cultural sector.
WFIMC: News from the 62nd General Assembly in Glasgow
The 62nd General Assembly of the World Federation of International Music Competitions (WFIMC), hosted by the Scottish International Piano Competition (SIPC), closed with the induction of four competitions and one associate organisation to the Federation, the election of the next three-year Board, and commitments to pursue greater transparency in member competition pre-selections.
WFAO Introduction to Orchestra Activities in Developing Countries
The World Federation of Amateur Orchestras – WFAO will,in collaboration with Norwegian Federation of Youth Orchestras – UNOF & Norwegian Federation of Amateur Orchestras – NASOL and in the frame of the 11th European Orchestra Festival of EOFed organize an International Conference as an
‘Introduction to Orchestra Activities in Developing Countries’
The seminar will consist of 2 parts:
“Introduction to Orchestra activities in developing countries”
Presentations by invited guests with follow-up discussion
“Presentations by the participants of their own activities”
Representatives of orchestras or orchestra-organisations will have the possibility to present their orchestra-activities