Music for Life International Presents Beethoven for the Rohingya: a Concert of Solidarity for the Rohingya Refugees
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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: Press Contact: Hannah Goldshlack-Wolf Tel: 212-222-4843| [email protected] Music For Life International Presents Beethoven for The Rohingya: A Concert of Solidarity for the Rohingya Refugees Net Proceeds Benefit Doctors Without Borders to Aid the Rohingya Fleeing Genocide Beethoven Symphony No. 9 and David Amram’s Elegy for Violin and Orchestra at Carnegie Hall – January 28, 2019 at 8PM New York, NY – Music for Life International continues its decade-long tradition of global humanitarian concerts with Beethoven for The Rohingya, a benefit concert featuring Beethoven’s monumental Ninth Symphony, presented in the Stern Auditorium/Perelman Stage at Carnegie Hall on Monday, January 28, 2019. Beethoven for The Rohingya is an urgent call to the global community to raise awareness for the nearly 1 million Rohingya refugees fleeing what the United Nations have defined as genocide in Rakhine State in Myanmar. Refugees, who are seeking safety in Bangladesh, Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia, and other nearby locations, are grossly lacking access to healthcare when it is needed most; net proceeds from this performance will benefit Doctors Without Borders/Médécins Sans Frontières (MSF), which provides medical aid to those who are among the world’s most vulnerable. Beethoven for The Rohingya is the eighth in a series of global humanitarian concerts presented by Music For Life International at Carnegie Hall. Music for Life International, which gathers together distinguished artists from the world’s finest orchestras, ensembles and institutions, has built its model and fine reputation on the concept that music itself is a vital source of energy, compassion, and universality and has raised more than $3.2 million in response to various humanitarian crises since its inception. Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony will be led by conductor and Music For Life Artistic Director, George Mathew, and will feature renowned American violinist, Elmira Darvarova, soprano Indra Thomas, mezzo-soprano Sarah Heltzel, tenor Sean Panikkar, and bass Soloman Howard, with remarks by Dr. John Lawrence, President, Board of Directors of Doctors Without Borders. Iconic American composer, conductor, artistic conscience of our time, and multifaceted musical titan David Amram will conduct his own Elegy for Violin and Orchestra, with Darvarova as the soloist. Amram’s poignant and deeply elegiac poem of lyrical yearning is offered as a memorial for the dead for whom intervention comes too late. With this concert, Amram makes his first conducting appearance at Carnegie Hall in more than 50 years, when he was the New York Philharmonic’s first Composer-in-Residence, appointed by Leonard Bernstein. Maestro Amram reflects on the concert, “Beethoven for The Rohingya is not only a musical feast for those who participate and share what we love to do, but it also shows that in 2019, New York remains a place where we welcome refugees and immigrants. This concert celebrates the spirit of generosity, the hallmark of the great classical music, which continues to survive the test of time and inspires those who create, as Beethoven and Schiller did, for the immortal Ninth Symphony.” Beethoven for The Rohingya comprises many of the finest classical musicians of the day, representing more than 70 international ensembles and organizations, their artistry donated. The Montclair State University Chorale performs the colossal choral score with conductor Dr. Heather J. Buchanan in their Carnegie Hall debut. Music For Life International Founder and Artistic Director George Mathew remarks that, “This performance and Beethoven’s vast final symphony are clarion calls to all people everywhere to recognize our common humanity. The Ninth is a symphonic statement against discrimination and against religious and ethnic persecution of any kind whether anti-Semitism, Islamophobia or the virulent anti-immigrant sentiment rising up all over the world.” He observes, “coming one day after World Holocaust Remembrance Day on January 27th, 2019, while the United Nations holds its UN Holocaust Memorial, Beethoven for The Rohingya, seeks to remind all of us, why Beethoven’s own words in the Ninth Symphony ‘Friends, NOT these horrific sounds but let us give voice to something better and more joyful,’ speaks to all who resolutely say ‘Never again.’” About the Ninth Symphony, George Mathew observes, “Beethoven himself makes a musical point in the Finale which is at the heart of our mission with this concert. Writing in an earlier era of tension between East and West, Beethoven sets the famous Ode to Joy as a German drinking song of the time accompanied by the percussion instruments of the Turkish military tradition, i.e. music of the Islamic world, to provide rhythmic stability and indeed security for the German (western) setting of the famous tune. At that moment Beethoven seems to become the voice of a whole civilization in a rare moment of embrace of another civilization. Two hundred years later, it appears we still have much to learn from this great wise man of music and the world.” Mr. Mathew noted, “In gathering together as a community of musicians, listeners, and supporters we are sending a message of solidarity and human support to our Rohingya brothers and sisters. There is no more fitting way that we can respond to this 21st century genocide perpetrated on the Rohingya people, currently one of the most vulnerable minorities on earth.” For more information visit www.beethovenfortherohingya.org Tickets: carnegiehall.org | CarnegieCharge (212) 247 – 7800 | Box Office at 57th St, Seventh Avenue About Music for Life International – www.music4lifeinternational.org Music for Life International, (MFLI) is a New York based social enterprise that was established to create social impact in a variety of sectors through music. MFLI presents musical concerts and other programs to promote the awareness of major international humanitarian crises and other public interest issues around the world. MFLI takes its name from the legendary MUSIC FOR LIFE concert organized by Leonard Bernstein for those affected by HIV/AIDS in 1987 at Carnegie Hall. MFLI is a registered 501(c)(3) tax-exempt not-for-profit organization. MFLI’s global humanitarian concerts have included Beethoven’s Ninth for South Asia (2006), Requiem for Darfur (2007), Mahler for the Children of AIDS (2009), Beethoven for the Indus Valley (2011), Shostakovich for the Children of Syria (2014), The Scheherazade Initiative (2015), and Mahler for Vision (2017), focusing on ending preventable cataract blindness and using cutting-edge technology and transformative socio-economic models for distributing these critical public health services. These concerts, presented in Carnegie Hall, have brought together distinguished musicians from over 100 leading international ensembles including the New York Philharmonic, MET Orchestra, Berlin Philharmonic, Philadelphia Orchestra, Boston Symphony, Vienna Philharmonic, Israel Philharmonic, San Francisco Symphony, and others. These concerts have received major global coverage in the BBC WORLD TV and Radio, CNN International, The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg News, Radio France, Voice of America, NY1 TV, National Public Radio, the Indian Express, The Hindu, the Pakistan Daily Times, and Musical America. The New York Times called Music for Life International’s humanitarian concert, Shostakovich for the Children of Syria, a performance which “will live in the memory for having been being part of its time as well as part of Shostakovich’s.” MFLI’s collaborations have included Doctors Without Borders, Refugees International, Acumen Fund, American Pakistan Foundation, American Jewish World Service, Catholic Medical Mission board, Questscope, Tufts University Institute for Global Leadership, and United Nations agencies such as UNICEF, UNDP, UN Women, and the UN Trust Fund to End Violence Against Women. In recent years, MFLI’s activities have expanded beyond New York and Carnegie Hall to include performances in the Netherlands, Panama, Jordan, Washington DC, Melbourne, Australia, Mumbai and New Delhi, India. Shostakovich for the Children of Syria at Carnegie Hall in January 2014, resulted in a weeklong residency of performances and education workshops at the Za’atari Syrian Refugee Camp in Jordan by a distinguished group of artists from the MET Orchestra, Buffalo Philharmonic, New World Symphony, and Jordanian National Symphony. About Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) - www.doctorswithoutborders.org Doctors Without Borders/Médécins Sans Frontières (MSF) works in nearly 70 countries providing medical aid to those most in need regardless of their race, religion, or political affiliation. MSF has been working in Bangladesh since 1985 but has been most recently involved in providing aid to refugees who have fled targeted violence in Myanmar since 2017. MSF has massively scaled up operations in Cox's Bazar district in direct response to the influx of hundreds of thousands of ethnic Rohingya refugees from Myanmar fleeing a campaign of targeted violence that began on August 25, 2017. By May 2018, there were more than 713,000 new arrivals at makeshift camps in Bangladesh. They join hundreds of thousands of other Rohingya who had fled earlier waves of violence and persecution in Myanmar. This is among the largest and fastest-growing refugee emergencies in decades, according to the United Nations. The Rohingya are a predominantly Muslim ethnic minority who have lived in Myanmar for hundreds