Wednesday, 1 July 2009
A Turkish international music festival honored a foreign pianist and conductor with an award on Tuesday.
The International Istanbul Music Festival granted lifetime achievement award to pianist and conductor Daniel Barenboim.
After the award ceremony at Istanbul's Lutfi Kirdar International Convention and Exhibition Center, Barenboim gave a concert together with Italian "Filarmonica Della Scala."
Barenboim and the Italian orchestra performed Beethoven's Piano Concerto No:3 and Berlioz's Fantastic Symphony.
Daniel Barenboim was born in Buenos Aires in 1942. Barenboim made his debut as a pianist in Vienna and Rome in 1952, Paris in 1955, London in 1956, and New York in 1957.
Following his debut as a conductor with the Philharmonia Orchestra in London in 1967, Barenboim was invited to conduct by many European and American symphony orchestras.
Barenboim made his opera conducting debut in 1973 with a performance of Mozart's Don Giovanni at the Edinburgh Festival.
Beside the great classic-romantic repertoire, Daniel Barenboim continues to focus on contemporary music.
The Istanbul Foundation for Culture and Arts (IKSV) organized the music festival between June 5 and 30.
The first international music festival took place between June 15-July 15, 1973, originally under the title Istanbul Festival. After the separation, in 1986, of the film and then the theater, jazz festivals and the biennial as distinct events, the name of the International Istanbul Festival was changed to International Istanbul Music Festival in 1994.
In its 35 years the International Istanbul Music Festival hosted honorable conductors such as Zubin Mehta, Sir John Elliot Gardiner, Riccardo Muti, Ton Koopman, William Christie, Howard Griffiths, Valery Gergiev, Christopher Hogwood, Pierre Boulez, Kurt Masur, Mark Minkowski and José Collado. A distinguished line-up of soloists such as Elizabeth Scwarzkopf, KiriTe Kanawa, Kathleen Battle, Cecilia Bartoli, Montserrat Caballé, Itzhak Perlman, Mischa Maisky, Maxim Vengerov, Gidon Kremer, Joshua Bell, Ado Ciccolini, Shlomo Mintz, Suna Kan, Ayla Erduran, Idil Biret and Huseyin Sermet were among the guests of the Istanbul Music Festival.
Outstanding dance companies such as the Martha Graham Dance Company, Bolshoi Ballet, American Ballet Theatre, Nederlands Dans Thetare as well as Les Ballets de Montecarlo were presented to music lovers in previous years.
