Daniel Barenboim
Daniel Barenboim
Daniel Barenboim, KBEis a pianist and conductor who is a citizen of Argentina, Israel, Palestine and Spain. He is general music director of the Berlin State Opera, and the Staatskapelle Berlin; he previously served as Music Director of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, the Orchestre de Paris and La Scala in Milan. Barenboim is known for his work with the West–Eastern Divan Orchestra, a Seville-based orchestra of young Arab and Israeli musicians, and as a resolute critic of the Israeli occupation...
NationalityArgentinian
ProfessionPianist
Date of Birth15 November 1942
CityBuenos Aires, Argentina
I always maintain that playing in an orchestra intelligently is the best school for democracy. If you play a solo, the conductor and everybody in the orchestra follows you. Then, a few bars later, the main voice goes to another instrument, another group, and then you have to go back into the collective [sound]. The art of playing in an orchestra is being able to express yourself to the maximum but always in relation to something else that is going on.
I have heard Ori Kam on several occasions over the last few years and have always been deeply impressed with his playing. He possesses a rare combination of musical talent, technical facility, intelligence, and charisma, and he is undoubtedly one of the most extraordinary young artists I have heard in recent years.
Every great work of art has two faces, one towards its own time and one towards future, towards eternity.
Every great work of art has two faces, one toward its own time and one toward the future, toward eternity.
To have real knowledge, one must understand the essence of things and not only their manifestations.
Now the first step has to be taken, the step towards democracy. This step is full of risks, and requires trust on all sides. We don't know where it will lead. But if we just stand still, we will have no chance of escaping the violence.
The Steinway piano is such an incomparable instrument. Due to its virtues, I am able to express all my musical feelings.
In the beginning, there was silence. And out of the silence came the sound. The sound is not here.
The tempo is the suitcase. If the suitcase is too small, everything is completely wrinkled. If the tempo is too fast, everything becomes so scrambled you can't understand it.
You can't expect someone born into a family with no music... to understand when I'm conducting the Schoenberg Variations.
I love conducting. What I'm tired of is music administration. I don't want that. I just want to make music.
Tradition demands that we not speak poorly of the dead.
I hope that my new status will be an example of Israeli-Palestinian co-existence, I believe that the destinies of the Israeli people and the Palestinian people are inextricably linked.
An Israeli who thinks that his government is doing everything right wouldn't join the Divan Orchestra in the first place.