In conjunction with the 2012 International Conference on Romanticism (ICR), held on ASU’s Tempe campus, the ASU Art Museum is showing Ross Birrell’s film Duet: Lift Me Up For I Am Dying.
A Palestinian violist and an Israeli violist perform Ross Birrell’s musical composition “Lift Me Up For I Am Dying,” in the Spiegelsaal of the Clärchens Ballhaus, separately and at their own tempo. The resulting two parts are put back together in a continuous installation, Duet. Approaching harmony continually falls into dissonance, which evokes the possibility of harmony to come.
Lift Me Up For I Am Dying, composed by Ross Birrell using the last spoken words of John Keats (1795-1821), was commissioned by the Swiss Institute in Rome and was first performed as a solo piece for viola by Giorgia Franceschi at Keats’ graveside in the Non-Catholic Cemetery in Rome on May 9, 2010 as part of Strange Comfort (Afforded by the Profession) curated by Adam Szymczyk and Salvatore Lacagnina. The score was printed in an edition of 300 and exhibited in the Keats-Shelley House, Rome. A related split screen video and series of hand casts were exhibited in Kunsthalle Basel, June 13-August 22, 2010.
http://www.frieze.com/issue/review/strange-comfort-afforded-by-the-profession/ .
Avri Levitan (Tel Aviv)
Avri Levitan was born in 1973 in Tel Aviv and lives in Berlin. He is one of today’s most outstanding soloists with wide international recognition and was a 2009 BBC Music Magazine Awards nominee. He performs regularly in some of the world’s most prestigious concert halls, such as the Berlin Philharmonic, Vienna Konzerthaus, Tokyo Oji Hall, Casals Hall Tokyo, National Philharmonic Hall Warsaw, Seoul Kumho Art Hall and Art Center and Stockholm Nybrokajen Hall. He features in Douglas Gordon’s film “K.364 a journey by train” (2010) and is Professor at the Zaragosa Conservatorio Superior, Aragon, Spain.
www.avrilevitan.com/
Tyme Khleifi (Ramallah)
Tyme Khleifi was born in 1989 in Ramallah in the West Bank of Palestine and is currently studying at Bard College in New York. She is a prominent member of the West-East Divan Orchestra, the Arab-Israeli Youth Orchestra formed in 1999 by Edward Said and Daniel Barenboim in the conviction that: ‘Music by itself can, of course, not resolve the Arab-Israeli conflict. Music grants the individual the right and obligation to express himself fully while listening to his or her neighbor. Based on this notion of equality, cooperation and justice for all, the Orchestra represents an alternative model to the current situation in the Middle East.’ With the West-East Divan Orchestra, Tyme has performed around the world, including on the border between North and South Korea and the BBC Proms.
www.west-eastern-divan.org/
The Spiegelsaal, Clärchens, Ballhaus, Berlin
The Spiegelsaal (‘Mirror Hall’) is a concert room in the historic Clärchens Ballhaus in Mitte, Berlin. Built in the late 19th Century, the Clärchens Ballhaus was bombed during World War II and the traces of war damage remain in the large cracked mirrors and tarnished grandeur of the Spiegelsaal which was left untouched for 60 years.
www.spiegelsaal-berlin.de/
Ross Birrell
Nominated for the Paul Hamlyn Award 2012 and Margaret Tait Award in 2012, Ross Birrell (Scotland, 1969) received a Creative Scotland award in 2011. In 2007 he received a SAC/Scottish Screen Award for Guantanamera (with David Harding) exhibited at Glasgow International 2010; Swiss Institute in Rome/Kunsthalle Basel; Galleri Rotor, Gothenburg; COBRA Museum of Modern Art, NL; Americas Society, NY; Portikus, Frankfurt. Solo shows include: XYZ Projects, Athens (with David Harding); Homo Ludens: Works from the Envoy Series, 1998-2005, FriesMuseum, NL (2005); Büro Frierdich, Berlin; Ellen de Bruijne, Amsterdam (2003). Group shows: Museo Tamayo, Mexico City (2012); COBRA Museum, NL; Kunsthalle Nürnberg/BAWAG Foundation (2007); Apex Art, NY; Gwangju Biennale, Korea (2002). Ross Birrell is represented by Ellen de Bruijne, Amsterdam.
www.edbprojects.nl
For more information on ICR, please visit http://english.clas.asu.edu/icr2012
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