Daniel Barenboim is Music Director of the Chicago Symphony
Orchestra and General Music Director of the Deutsche Staatsoper
Berlin. He gave his first public performance as pianist at the age
of seven. He celebrated the fiftieth anniversary of that milestone
in the year 2000 with a series of concerts throughout the world,
culminating in a complete cycle of Beethoven piano concertos and
symphonies at Carnegie Hall in New York City. He has been
associated with the Bayreuth Festival since 1981.
Edward W. Said was born in 1935 in Jerusalem, raised in Jerusalem
and Cairo, and educated in the United States, where he attended
Princeton (B.A. 1957) and Harvard (M.A. 1960; Ph.D. 1964). In 1963,
he began teaching at Columbia University, where he was University
Professor of English and Comparative Literature. He is the author
of twenty-two books which have been translated into 35 languages,
including Orientalism (1978); The Question of Palestine (1979);
Covering Islam (1980); Culture and Imperialism (1993); Peace
and Its Discontents (1996); and Out of Place: A Memoir (1999).
Besides his academic work, he wrote a twice-monthly column for
Al-Hayat and Al-Ahram; was a regular contributor to newspapers in
Europe, Asia, and the Middle East; and was the music critic for The
Nation. He died in 2003 in New York City.
“Crammed with oversized ideas. . . . Over and over, they find the
points where music touches other aspects of being alive: politics,
literature, home, war.” --Newsday
“Fascinating. . . . These conversations, filled with a passionate
commitment to the life of the mind and the complexities of the
arts, have an intoxicating richness.”–San Jose Mercury News
“[A] genuine give-and-take between keen minds and open hearts. . .
. The fluidity of their relationship, like musicians in an
orchestra, is a compelling model for a world often splintered by
dogma, ideology and hermetically sealed minds.” –Los Angeles Times
Renowned pianist and conductor Barenboim, currently general music director of the Deutsche Staatsoper Berlin, comes from a Russian Jewish family transplanted to Argentina and Israel. Said (Orientalism), Columbia professor of English and comparative literature and an accomplished amateur pianist, is a Palestinian who grew up largely in Cairo in an anglicized Christian Arab family. Their differing but entwined histories have led to friendship and a number of public and private conversations about music, culture, politics and "the parallels as well as the paradoxes" of their lives. Edited by Guzelimian, Senior Director and Artistic Adviser of Carnegie Hall, these stimulating discussions-written in the form of three-way Q&A interviews-touch on the nature of sound, some of the similarities and differences between music and literature, performances and audiences, and the authenticity movement. The two agree on the importance of music in uniting people of conflicting political views, and in 1999 they collaborated in setting up the Weimar workshop, which brought together Arab, Israeli and German musicians to form an orchestra. The importance of setting aside national identity in favor of a larger ideal is stressed throughout the book. Barenboim shows himself to be unfazed by the recent controversies surrounding his work in Berlin and his determination to perform Wagner in Israel. Said remarks that in today's world, it has "become quite rare to project one's self outward, to have a broader perspective." These enlightening conversations show that Said and Barenboim are able to do just that. (Oct.) Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information.
"Crammed with oversized ideas. . . . Over and over, they find the
points where music touches other aspects of being alive: politics,
literature, home, war." --Newsday
"Fascinating. . . . These conversations, filled with a
passionate commitment to the life of the mind and the complexities
of the arts, have an intoxicating richness."-San Jose Mercury
News
"[A] genuine give-and-take between keen minds and open
hearts. . . . The fluidity of their relationship, like musicians in
an orchestra, is a compelling model for a world often splintered by
dogma, ideology and hermetically sealed minds." -Los Angeles
Times
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