Aug
25

Beethoven Festival 2011
September 14 – 18 schedule
Location: 2229 S. Halsted Street Chicago Urban Art Society
Festival Passes from $20 to $180 purchase
BEETHOVEN AS MAN AND MUSE
Contemporary Art and Film exhibit curated by Beethoven Festival 2011 Art Director Catinca Tabacaru buttresses 5 day and 5 nights of classical concerts performed by Chicago’s most renowned musicians. The Festival presents the first collection of Beethoven Portraits in over 200 years and includes works by Amina Ahmed, Michael Cuffe, David J. Eichenberg, Carly Ivan Garcia, Ellen Gradman, Mostafa Heravi, Amy Hill, Edward J. Hines, Maya Kalabic, Hugh Leeman, Brian Leo, Danielle Lurie, Rachel Monosov, J. Thomas Pallas, Amir Parsa, Gail Stoicheff, Rhom and Anne Worbes.
CHICAGO – International Beethoven Project (IBP) – the organization that brought the historic and critically acclaimed (Chicago Tribune, New York Times) Beethoven World Premiere to Chicago in 2009 – has again made Chicago its premiere location, this time for its newest project: Beethoven Festival 2011. A radical new vision for presenting culture in both contemporary and historical contexts, Beethoven Festival 2011 is a five-day, multi-disciplinary celebration of the life, works and spirit of Ludwig van Beethoven through music and art. To be presented in spectacular fashion at the edgy and acoustically superb CHICAGO URBAN ART SOCIETY from 4pm until 2am nightly, with many performances broadcast live on Chicago’s 98.7 WFMT radio.
The Festival features 70 musicians–performing over 80 pieces of music from 20 living composers, 12 contemporary artists, 5 filmmakers, 3 scholars, 2 actors and 1 poet. Also featured are twenty new works for piano solo and music spanning 400 years –from baroque to rock, solo to orchestra, with plenty of Beethoven at center. Food and Drink vendors will be on location to allow audiences to enjoy concerts with a glass in hand, in a home-like setting.
President and Artistic Director of IBP, George Lepauw, explains: “Few people get to experience the great master as he should be: a true radical in a radical setting. Beethoven was a rebel who broke all the rules of musical and societal conventions, changing forever the world of art and the rights of the artist. He was the first modernist. Thus we are challenging all the rules of classical music programming, in honor of Beethoven’s spirit of defiance and experimentation, with the goal of inspiring artists and audiences to be fearless, visionary and always hopeful. Ultimately this project is not really about music, or art, but about humanity and bringing people together around memorable and beautiful sights and sounds.”