|
| |
 Garnering
superlatives from the press and the public, Megiddo and Abboud Ashkar are in the
top rank of international musicians. The Washington Post declared them a “very
promising duo… their performance pairs intensity … with finely etched stylistic
distinction”. Their engagements take them to some of the most prestigious
venues across the United States and Europe, ranging from the Staatsoper in
Berlin and the Corcoran Gallery in Washington, to the UN General Assembly in
Geneva, Switzerland.
The duo has toured in the
US, Canada, and continental Europe to unanimous critical acclaim. Their
performance at the National Concert Hall in Dublin was a recent highlight, as
were their sold out performances in San Francisco, New Orleans and Montreal.
Megiddo and Abboud Ashkar
began their musical collaboration in 2001. They were introduced by Maestro
Daniel Barenboim at the West East Divan Festival, a festival that brings
together gifted young musicians from the Middle East, and provides an apolitical
atmosphere for the musicians to work and perform together. Megiddo and Abboud
Ashkar continue in this philosophy, choosing to set aside the political
implications of their collaboration in favor of a purely musical partnership of
the highest caliber.
The duo is currently planning a tour of the
Americas in the 2004 season.
Israeli Cellist,
Arab Pianist Reach a Musical Summit
The partnership between the Israeli cellist Inbal Megiddo and the Israeli Arab
pianist Saleem Abboud Ashkar is a promising one. On Thursday at the University
of Maryland's Smith Center, the young musicians played works of Boccherini,
Shostakovich, J.S. Bach, Part and de Falla, pairing intensity with an awareness
of stylistic distinctions as keenly drawn between composers as within movements.
After lending a mellow luster to Boccherini's rather placid Sonata No. 6,
Megiddo and Ashkar really got going in Shostakovich's Sonata, Op. 40. The
piano's percussive hammer strokes met head on with the music's razor-sharp
contrasts of high and low registers. Textures of empty desolation between these
extremes of pitch reflected musically the vast reaches of the composer's
homeland. Finely etched in performance, these bittersweet scenes peaked in the
bite of the finale's contrapuntal parody. Bach's Gamba Sonata in D was rendered
with regal dignity and intimate grace, leading to the evening's high-water mark:
the whispered fragility of Part's "Spiegel im Spiegel" -- so moving that
listeners delayed applause. This celestial stillness, unfortunately, was soon
dispelled by the earthy gusto of de Falla's "Suite Populaire Espagnole."
- Cecelia Porter,
The Washington Post : Jan
11, 2003
Coming from Different Worlds: A Musical Collaboration Flourishes
Music knows no boundaries as Israeli cellist Inbal Megiddo and Israeli-Arab
pianist Saleem Abboud Ashkar grace the stage of the Gildenhorn Recital Hall of
the Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center on Thursday, Jan. 9 in a
co-presentation with the Embassy of Israel at 8 p.m.
The duo will present a classical repertoire including "Sonata in A major" by
Luigi Boccherini, "Sonata in D minor, op. 40" by Dmitri Shostakovich, Bach's "Gamba
Sonata D" "Major, Spiegel im Spiegel" by Arvo Pהrt, "Suite Populaire Espagnole"
by Manuel De Falla and "Hungarian Rhapsody" by David Popper.
In a 1995 interview with Yale University's Daily News, Megiddo, the child of an
Israeli diplomat, saw her first cello when she was only 2 years old and soon
began practicing. In 1983, at the age of 6, she won the first of several
scholarships. It was after meeting and studying with Russian cellist Mstislav
Rostropovich that the 15-year-old Megiddo was inspired to become a stage
performer. Megiddo was hailed at her recent New York Lincoln Center debut as
having "magical expression and technical expertise." She has performed around
the world as soloist with several ensembles including the Prague Chamber
Orchestra and the Boston Classical Orchestra and has given numerous recitals in
Europe, Asia and America.
At the invitation of the Singapore government in 1995, Megiddo was the featured
soloist at the official celebration of the 50th anniversary of the United
Nations in Singapore. In 1995, she performed the Kaddish at the memorial service
for Israel's slain former Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin in New York City's
Madison Square Garden. There she performed a solo piece and accompanied a choir
before an estimated 19,000 mourners.
Born in 1976 in Nazareth, Israel, Saleem Abboud Ashkar has won recognition for
his talents since the age of 10. He made his Carnegie Hall debut in New York, at
the age of 22, under the direction of Maestro Daniel Barenboim, and has played
with such world-renowned orchestras as the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, the
Berlin Staatsoper Orchestra, the Gewandhaus Orchestra in Leipzig and many
others. He has worked with such conductors as Daniel Barenboim, Zubin Mehta,
Lorance Foster and others. A highlight of his career was his participation in
the Ruhrgebit Piano Festival, Germany, where he was awarded the festival's prize
of "The Young Talent of the Year 2000." Ashkar has given numerous recitals
around the world and plays regularly with most of the orchestras in Israel
including the Israeli Philharmonic Orchestra, Israeli Chamber Orchestra, the
Jerusalem Kamerata and the Jerusalem Symphony Orchestra. In 1998, Ashkar was
awarded the Palestine Prize.
- Outlook Online: December 10, 2002
Israeli musicians
skirt politics of homeland Jewish cellist and Palestinian pianist to perform
'Harmony Amidst Discord'
When cellist Inbal Megiddo and pianist Saleem Abboud Ashkar play
together they hear only music -- the sounds of a Beethoven sonata, say, coming
gradually and painstakingly into focus. But they understand the impulse to put a
larger interpretation on the artistic collaboration between two Israeli
musicians, one Palestinian and one Jewish. "Look, we're not naive," said
Megiddo in a recent phone interview. "We know that beyond our circle, people
take this as a political statement. But we regret that it is a political
statement -- we would like people to come out just thinking that it was a great
evening of music." "There is no denying the fact that two of us working
together like this is something special, given the situation at home," said
Abboud Ashkar. "But it's a pity that it's special -- we'd like to get to the
point where we wouldn't be talking about this at all."
Among those taking a broader view of the pair's activities is the
Israeli Consulate in San Francisco, which will present a duo recital by the two
musicians at the Florence Gould Theatre on Tuesday. The recital, featuring music
by Shostakovich, Bach, Beethoven, Manuel de Falla and Arvo Part, has been dubbed
"Harmony Amidst Discord" to suggest the possibility of promoting greater
understanding through music. For Megiddo and Abboud Ashkar, that would seem to
go without saying. "In my personal life, I am very politically aware and
engaged," Abboud Ashkar says, "but it doesn't affect my professional life. I
don't mix the two."
The two musicians, both 26, met two years ago as participants in
the West- Eastern Divan Workshop, a summer festival based in Chicago and run by
Israeli conductor and pianist Daniel Barenboim to bring together musicians from
throughout the Middle East. "This was an opportunity to play with musicians I
ordinarily wouldn't have met," Megiddo says. "As an Israeli I would never get a
chance to know a Syrian or Jordanian musician." She and Abboud Ashkar read
through some chamber music together and found that there was immediate chemistry
(musical but not romantic -- each has a sweetheart elsewhere). "We have a
similar intensity and a similar approach," Abboud Ashkar says. "We disagree
about particular details, of course, but our general attitude to music and
music-making is very similar."
So far, the partnership seems to be doing very well. In Washington,
D.C., two weeks ago, the opening recital of the monthlong tour was praised in
the Washington Post by Cecelia Porter for its "intensity" and "finely etched
playing." Although the two see eye-to-eye on musical matters, their backgrounds
are distinct. Abboud Ashkar was born and raised in Nazareth, in a setting where
he says Western classical music was an anomaly. "I see myself as somebody
actively involved in something that is not directly my own culture. I still
don't know why I chose it. All I know is that there was a piano in the house and
I was fascinated by it." The early stages of his training were difficult, with
two-hour drives from Nazareth to Tel Aviv for piano lessons. At 17, he made his
way to London, where he still lives, and studied at the Royal Academy of Music
and later in Berlin. Megiddo, whose father works for Israel's Ministry of
Foreign Affairs, lived in Washington until she was 5 -- by which time she had
already given her first public performances. Her studies continued in Jerusalem
and later at Yale, where she earned bachelor's and master's degrees. Today,
both lead the peripatetic lives of classical musicians, maintaining a home base
(hers is in Dublin) that they visit only briefly on the way from one recital or
orchestral engagement to the next. And though the political situation in their
shared homeland continues to be of concern to both of them, they keep it in the
background when music calls. "Our conversations are mostly about tempos and
bowings," Abboud Ashkar says. "Naturally, we talk about politics from time to
time, but it's not regularly on the agenda. "I think the last time we spoke
about politics was a year ago."
- Joshua Kosman, Chronicle Music Critic, San Francisco
Chronicle: Saturday, January 18, 2003
|
