After introductory remarks by the Austrian Ambassador Christian Prosl, the fund’s general secretary, Hannah Lessing, as well as the U. S. Special Envoy for Holocaust Issues, Ambassador Christian Kennedy, and the U. S. Special Representative for Holocaust Era Issues, the Honorable Stuart Eizenstat gave powerful and emotional speeches.
Each attendee was presented with a copy of the anniversary publication of the National Fund–a two volume history of the fund and a impressive collection of memories from Holocaust survivors.
Seda performed selections from her Viennese Piano Music of the Turn of the Century program, which she presented in April at the Austrian Cultural Forum in New York City.
The Turkish composer Tolga Tüzün speaks about the compositional process that underlies his new piano piece “Permanence,” a piece he composed for the “Listening to Istanbul” Project and dedicated to me. I can’t wait to play this composition for the Listening to Istanbul project.
By the way, if you haven’t signed up to my mailing list yet, please do so. I’ll send around a notice once the recording is ready. And hopefully you will be able to come to one of the many concerts that we are planning as well!
As many of you know, right now I am working on a CD and concert project: “Listening to Istanbul”. For this project I have commissioned six piano works by the most talented Turkish composers of our time. I will record this excellent music in June 2010, and perform the pieces in a series of concerts in Turkey, Europe and the US starting in July.
If you would like to learn more about “Listening to Istanbul” here is a video in which I introduce the project. To stay informed about the upcoming CD and the concerts simply sign up for my newsletter or visit us on http://www.newmusicistanbul.com!
if you missed the HYDRA concert on December 11, here you can watch the video of our performance (with Sam Solomon on percussion). Even if this video cannot capture the effect of the electronics with 32 loudspeakers I guess it will still stimulate your appetite for the next HYDRA series. I hope you enjoy the video of Winternacht as much as we enjoyed performing it! Let us know what you think!