Limelight — May 2017

is strong enough to counterbalance the

commercialisationofculturalvalues,and

it’s our educational system. Yet here we sit,

intheyear2017,andinourschoolschildren

are being pushed through without music,

without visual arts, without dance or literary

arts,trainingprimarilyonesideoftheir

brains–analyticallyandnumerically–

whiletheotherhalf,whichisaboutholistic

and aesthetic learning, remains severely

underdeveloped.Thatissomethingabout

whichweshouldallbe concerned.

ThefateofJewishmusiciansandthelegacy

oftheearly-20thcenturyisobviously

importanttoyou.Whoforyouarethe

inspirationalfiguresfromthisperiod?

My grandparents and great grandparents on

my mother’s side were German Jews kicked

outofBerlininthe1930s.VonRibbentrop

personally confiscated my grandmother’s

house and turned it into the centre for

Nazi cryptology, the German equivalent of

BletchleyPark.Therearemanyinspirational

figures from that period: Menahem Pressler,

Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Gideon Klein, Helmuth

JamesGrafvonMoltkeandSophieScholl.

Buttherearemany,manymore.Imadea

filmabouttheTheresiensadtconcentration

camp calledRefuge in Music, telling the story

of two surviving musicians, classical pianist

AliceHerz-SommerandjazzguitaristCoco

Schumann.Bothinspiredmeenormously.

What did you achieve through theTu Was!

project?Andwasitaoneoff?

I’vedone“Tuwas!”(literally‘DoSomething’)

threetimesnow.Ononeoccasionitwas

a climate change concert. We calculated

howmuchCO2wasgeneratedbyone

performance and had energy companies

donatethemoneytoplant1000trees

to offset that amount. The other two

concerts commemorated the 70th and

75thanniversaryofKristallnacht.The

oneonNovember9,2013wasinfrontof

theBrandenburgGate.Imagesofartists

and musicians banished from Berlin were

projected onto the Gate while thousands of

school kids took part in a year-long project

to make short cellphone films on the subject

of tolerance, which were also projected.

So can musicians do anything to combat

xenophobiaandfearoftheimmigrant?

As we speak, the UK has just separated

fromtherestofEuropeandweareseeinga

worrying rise in right wing populism around

theworld.Let’sbeclear:musiccannotchange

theworld.ButIdobelieveitcantouchpeople

andmakethemthink.Andifitcanmake

them think, then it can incite dialogue. And

dialogueisouronlyhopetopreventwar...

Daniel Hope’sFor SeasonsisoutonDeutsche

Grammophon and reviewed on page 75

Photo © Tibor Bozi / DG

http://www.limelightmagazine.com.au MAY 2017LIMELIGHT 41

INTERVIEW O

ADULT LIFE

BEGINSINACHILD’S

IMAGINATION, BUT IN

THELAST50YEARS

WE’VETURNEDTHAT

IMAGINATION OVER

TO THE MARKETPLACE.

AND THE MARKETPLACE

PUTSAPRICEON

EVERYTHING