The iconic Michael Neumann interprets favorite soundtrack

One of the most important forms of modern art and one of the…
most emblematic representatives of minimalist music, Michael Nyman, is visiting Athens with the famous band, to present the concert “The Baroque Project”, at the Athens concert Hall, on Saturday, 5 March, at 9 in the evening.
Multi-talented and hyperactive
Michael Nyman created a lot of tunes for film, drawing inspiration from the baroque. Favorite composer of movie buffs due to the long-term successful cooperation with Peter Γκρίναγουεϊ (“The cook, the thief, his wife and her lover”, “Gattaca”, “The end of a relationship” etc.), he became known to the wider public from his music for the film “piano Lessons” (1993) by Jane Campion. The soundtrack of the film became many times platinum, with sales over 3 million copies.
Multi-talented and hyperactive, the British creator embodies the modern version of the “man of the Renaissance”, as it is also a performer, conductor, pianist, λιμπρετίστας, author, critic, musicologist, photographer and filmmaker. Apart from music scores for movies, he has composed operas, six concertos, four quartets for strings, chamber music and music for theatre, contemporary dance of Lucinda Childs, Karine Σαπορτά and others.
He has written 10 song cycles based on poetry of Shakespeare, Milton, Τσέλαν, Neruda, Paz, and Mexican folk poets. He has collaborated with artists from outside the western classical tradition, or experimental music, such as the Nor -, the Flying Lizard, o Sting and others. The most recent compositional work focuses on silent films of the 1920s.
At the same time, deals with the synthesis of a series of 19 agreements, on the occasion of the celebration of the εβδομηκοστών birthday, the 2014. They have also awarded orders for the composition of works, on the occasion of important anniversaries (25th anniversary of the tragedy at the stadium Hillsboro, events for the centenary of the outbreak of the first World War, 100th anniversary of the birth of the poet Octavio Paz, etc.).
Quotes from favorite soundtrack
The program of the concert in the Hall will start with four excerpts from the music for the film “The contract of the designer” (1982-3) Peter Γκρίναγουεϊ, the plot of which is placed in England 1695. The quotes are based, mainly, in fragments of melodies, and entire compositions of Henry Purcell. Here are two pieces from the music for the film of the Γκρίναγουεϊ, “A zeta and two noughts” (1985). This is a free compositions Neumann, inspired by the English baroque of the 17th century, but and Bieber.
Then, you hear the work “The book of musicologist”, order of the BBC Proms 2005 to the composer, for the celebration for the death of Purcell (1695) and the birth of Handel (1685). The scores are based, in part, on material from well-known and unknown works of two great composers, both of whom had studied in depth the Neumann, as a student of musicology, in the 1960’s.
The start of the second part of the concert belongs to the composition “Memorial”, which is inspired by an aria of the opera “King Arthur”, and again by Purcell. Initially, in 1985, the project was dedicated by Neumann in memory of the followers of Juventus, who were killed in the stadium Hazel Brussels, but, later, the composer gave the Γκρίναγουεϊ for the soundtrack of the film “The cook, the thief, his wife and her lover” (1989).
The “Memorial”, will replace four pieces, written for “books of Prospero” (1991), a film of Γκρίναγουεϊ which is the personal reading of the “Tempest” of Shakespeare. One of these is inspired by the “Πασακάλια” of Couperin. Immediately after, the Michael Nyman Band will perform the composition “City of Turin” from the album “The Glare” (2009, in collaboration with David McAlmond).
The epilogue of the evening belongs to four quotes from the “Dancing water”, a οκταμερή composition based on a μαδριγάλι of Monteverdi, but also in material of the same of Neumann, which was used in the short film of the Γκρίναγουεϊ, “Making a Splash” (1984).