“Sixty years ago, at age 14, Daniel Barenboim made his debut at Carnegie Hall,” writes Alexandra Wolfe in Friday’s (1/20) Wall Street Journal (subscription required). “He played Prokofiev’s Piano Concerto No. 1 in a program called ‘World Peace Through World Music.’ This month, the Argentine-Israeli musician, educator and political activist is back at the New York City venue preparing to conduct the Staatskapelle Berlin … in a [Bruckner symphony] cycle.… [Barenboim] has conducted and played piano at nearly every major classical concert hall in the world. Last year, he added an entirely new venue: YouTube, where he has been posting short videos of himself playing and talking conversationally about different piano pieces and elements of music.… The effort came out of his concern that the public isn’t being exposed to enough classical music.… Mr. Barenboim blames the decline on a lack of music education for the young—and he thinks it’s up to musicians to now fill in the gaps.… His focus on education goes beyond teaching … to a broader engagement with the world, particularly the Middle East. Last month, he opened the Berlin-based Barenboim-Said Academy, which offers training in music and the humanities for students from the Middle East and North Africa.”
Posted January 25, 2017
