Morawetz work honors memory of M.L. King
Oskar Morawetz' Memorial to Martin Luther King, for cello, winds and
piano, has had yet another successful performance. The work was featured at the
Banff Centre Festival in August. Tsuyoshi Tsutsumi was the solo cellist and
Victor Feldbrill conducted the Canadian Chamber Orchestra. Reviews of the
concert were uniformly full of praise for the composition. The Albertan's
Eugene Cramer called it "one of the best Canadian works I have heard" and
affirmed "it should rank with the Berg Violin Concerto as one of the monuments
of 20th century music of its kind".
Memorial to Martin Luther King, originally commissioned by Mstislav
Rostropovich, has been performed during the last three years by such artists as
Zara Nelsova, Dennis Brott, Ian Hampton, Mark Drobinski (a Russian cellist and
former student of Rostropovich). April 4th of this year was especially memorable
for Morawetz as this tenth anniversary of Dr. King's death saw the broadcasting
of the tribute on sixteen major radio stations in the United States to an
estimated audience of several million listeners. The work was also heard on the
CBC network and CJRT radio station.
The Banff Festival performance was also significant for Oskar Morawetz' piano
accompaniment of five of his songs with Alexander Gray as soloist. The
Edmonton Journal described the occasion in these words:
"Oscar Morawetz is widely acknowledged as one of Canada's most
distinguished composers. But he is also an exceptional pianist - a fact known
only to his closest friends because of his reluctance to perform in public. But
recently he did make an appearance as a musician - for the first time in twenty
years - and the result was a stunning success. Gray's emotionally-charged
singing and Morawetz's eloquent piano contribution left a capacity audience at
the Banff Centre enthusiastically clamoring for more."
