Hiroshima marks 80 years since atomic bombing - 6th August 1945 - 'Music for Peace Project continues to evolve - Martha Argerich's creation from the ruins

Must humanity continue this utter destructive madness, insanity, irrationality and erasure of empathy in wars in 2025 ?

Yet in science on 30 September 2016, the Rosetta spacecraft ended its mission by a hard-landing on the comet in its Ma'at region. A truly miraculous team effort and an almost inconceivable human achievement

The advances in science and medicine since WW II have been monumental 

How can our moral life and values disintegrate like this without development, being as primitive, cruel and brutal as ever they have been for thousands of years in states of war ? 
How ? Why ? 
Dancing around the Old Testament golden calf ?

Mankind appears to have a self-destructive, inherited  gene built into its blood ...
 

Hiroshima after the bomb 



A wristwatch found in the ruins
(Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum)

A silent prayer was held in Japan on Wednesday morning as it marked 80 years since the United States dropped an atomic bomb on the city of Hiroshima.

Japanese prime minister Shigeru Ishiba attended the ceremony on Wednesday, along with officials from around the world and the city's mayor Kazumi Matsui.

Matsui warned of a global "accelerating trend toward military build-up... [and] the idea that nuclear weapons are essential for national defence", saying this was a "flagrant disregard [of] the lessons the international community should have learned from the tragedies of history".

World War Two ended with Japan's surrender after the dropping of the bombs in Hiroshima and Nagasaki.


Martha Argerich playing Chopin on the profoundly moving Akiko's piano that survived the bomb. The beautiful, female young pianist, who was playing Chopin, did not. 

Please read this past post for more details of an extraordinary creative project and experience I was involved with - the Hiroshima  'Music for Peace' project created by 
Martha Argerich




Another watch from the ruins 
(Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum)



A child's tricycle from the ruins - read the poignant story in the link above
(Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum)

Sinfonia Varsovia in October 2025 

“A Tribute to Martha Argerich”

Conductor : Christian Arming

Soloists:

 Martha Argerich(10/12)  Ivo Pogorelich( 10/6,10/7,10/9)   

Aimi Kobayashi( 10/4, 10/5,10/7,10/10,10/12)   Kyohei Sotita(10/5)

Program A

Beethoven: 　Fidelio overture

Mozart : Symphony No.40 in g minor KV550　

 (Intermission)

Chopin: Piano Concerto No.1 E-minor by Aimi Kobayashi

Program B

Dvorak: Symphony  No.8  in G-major op.88

(intermission)

Chopin:Piano Concerto No.2 F-minor concerto by Ivo Pogorelich

Program C

Beethoven: 　Fidelio overture 　

Chopin : Piano Concerto No.1  by Aimi Kobayashi

(intermission)

Lecture  ”Martha Argerich and Japan “ recited  by Annie Dutoit-Argerich

Beethoven : Piano Concerto No.1 in C-major op.15 by Martha Argerich

Program D

Beethoven : Fidelio overture

Chopin: Piano Concerto No.2 by　Ivo  Pogorelich

( intermission)

Chopin :Piano Concerto No.1  by Aimi Kobayashi

Program E

Beethoven : Fidelio overture

Paderewski: Fantaisie polonaise sur des thèmes originaux in G Minor, Op.19by Kyohei Sorita

( intermission)

Chopin :Piano Concerto No.1  by Aimi Kobayashi

Schedule  October 2025

October

2 (thu）Sinfonia Varsovia  arrival in Tokyo

3(fri）rehearsal  at Triphony Hall　time tbc

4(sat) 19:00 concert (1)　 Triphony Hall  Program A 

5(sun) 16:00 concert (2)　NHK Hall   program　E

6(mon) 19:00  concert (3)　Triphony Hall Program B 

7(tue) 18:45 concert (4) 　Nagoya Aichi Arts Theatre 　D 

8(wed) free

9(thu)  19:00 concert ( 5)  Izumi Hall (Osaka) Program B 

10 (fri) 19:00  concert (6)  Izumi Hall (Osaka) Program A　

11 (sat) free   

12(sun) GP12:00-14:00 ,15:00  concert (7) Kyoto Concert Hall Program C

13 (mon) Sinfonia Varsovia depart Japan 　

Music for Peace Project - Hiroshima February 2019
The full account of my involvement

http://www.michael-moran.com/2019/02/music-for-peace-project-hiroshima.html

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli (1920-1995) and his Ferraris - not only an immortal Chopinist. Also Herbert von Karajan, Sergei Rachmaninoff and Andy Warhol and their cars

Image
Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli (1920-1995)   There is little need for me to introduce Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli, one of the greatest pianists and musicians of all time.  I have been listening to a remarkable live recording of a concert he gave in Warsaw in 1955. His Bach/Busoni Chaconne from the Partita in D minor No.2 BWV 1004 is surely one of the greatest ever recorded.   Michelangeli's    knowledge and command of the piano as an instrument was unequaled, permitting his soul and ours to take unhindered flight. His total identification with the music, his majestic 'Olympian' and 'Apollonian' playing has often been described as 'unearthly' even to the point of bordering on the cold classicism of a perfect Athenian statue. I once heard him play Debussy and Beethoven many years ago  in the Royal Festival Hall in London, performing  on two distinct Steinway concert grand pianos, one for each composer, individually tuned and prepared by himself. His hea...
Read more

Composer Abuse - Truth Decay in the Life of Fryderyk Chopin

Image
Composer Abuse   Truth Decay in the Life of Fryderyk Chopin The Young Chopin (1810-1849) The recent, tendentious article entitled  'Chopin's interest in men airbrushed from history, programme claims' that appeared in The Guardian newspaper (Philip Oltermann and Shaun Walker, Wednesday 25 Nov 2020) clearly has an agenda that possesses only a passing relationship to serious music and more pointedly, sexual orientation in its depiction of the life of the Polish composer Fryderyk Chopin. Subtitle:  Journalist says he has found overt homoeroticism in Polish composer’s letters.  What is interesting is the fact that the Swiss public broadcaster SRF’s arts channel decided that this old 'sensationalist' chestnut was an important enough 'revelation' to have made a long programme entitled Chopin's Men concerning the issue. That his true sexual proclivities have been  'airbrushed from history' could only be seriously considered as 'Stop Press News...
Read more

The Pianist on Square d'Orléans. The Rediscovered Chopin Pleyel piano, Factory No.13214 (1847) Fryderyk Chopin's penultimate instrument

Image
Pleyel Factory Number 13214 (1847) The great English painter J. M. W. Turner once remarked  'always take advantage of an accident'.  In this case I am attempting to take advantage of a coincidence. The consideration is of two  Pleyel  Petit Patron grand pianos used by Fryderyk Chopin. These instruments followed each other to the same address in Paris as if in the manner of a metaphysical destiny.  I have already covered in detail the restoration in Warsaw of Chopin's last piano in Paris,  Pleyel  No .  14810 of 1848, and will follow this with an examination of the history and review a performance on the recently rediscovered penultimate  Pleyel  used by Chopin in Paris,   Factory No. 13214 of 1847.  The award-winning pianist and pedagogue Professor Hubert Rutkowski of the  Hochschule für Musik und Theater  in Hamburg explained the fascination  Pleyel  had for the P...
Read more