Together with music – Patron: Denis Goldberg
International music and culture festival
The 70 years anniversary of the Music School Soest was the reason for the next big project which musicWays Germany e.V. decisively supported and shaped: “Together with music” was the motto of this international music and culture festival that occured on the 7th and 8th July 2017 in the Strabag-Halle, a former industrial hall.
“Modern Times”: movie scores with conductor David Crescenzi
The festival opened on the 7th July with a great concert of well known classical movie scores under the title “Modern Times”. The “Modern Times Ochestra” (MTO), a project orchestra of the Music School Soest, played under the direction of David Crescenzi. This well known italian conductor was hired by musicWays Germany, practiced with the orchestra daily and managed to drive the over 100 musicians strong orchestra to peak performance.
Around 1000 people, young and old, came to the Strabag-Halle and were thrilled by the performances, showering the musicians with standing ovations. The amazing acoustic of the old industrial hall, the motivated ensemble, a charismatic conductor and the captivating atmosphere ensured an unforgettable evening. The media concluded: “Soest will remember this for a long time.”
musicWays Germany managed to win Denis Goldberg as a patron for the two day festival. The companion of Nelson Mandela wanted to personally attend the event as a patron and travel all the way from South Africa to the town of Soest in Germany – but due to health concerns he had to cancel on short notice.
“Moments in a life”: Musically and literary production
Highlight on the second festival day was the performance of “Moments in a life”, a musical interpretation of Goldbergs biography by Matthijs van Dijk with text from Goldberg. Preparations for this part of the event were made at different schools of Soest: Birgit Morgenrath did a book reading and reported on the life of Denis Goldberg, Bongani Justice as a young South African opened a dialog with teenagers of Soest and talked about the Apartheid in South Africa in 2017.
Originally Denis Goldberg himself prepared to read parts of his autobiographical texts in a performance together with the chamber ensemble. After his cancellation the South African singer Gisela de Villiers took over the voice parts of him.
(Photos of the project: Michael Joswig, Christoph Hendricks, Maxine Sambale, Vitus Redmann, Musikschule Soest, private)
Together with music: media documentation
Performance with David Crescenzi and the “MTO”
Performance with Gisela de Villiers
More photos and even more…
… from the Strabag-Halle and preparations all around the international culture and music festival and other downloads can be found in the media documentation of the extra-page 70 of the music school Soest „70“ :
