This article relies on references to primary sources or sources affiliated with the subject, rather than references from independent authors and third-party publications. Please add citations from reliable sources. (February 2007)

Manolis Kalomiris (Greek: Μανώλης Καλομοίρης (1883–1962)), was a Greek classical composer. He was the founder of the Greek National School of Music.

Biography[link]

Born in Smyrna, he attended school in Constantinople and studied piano and composition in Vienna. After working for a few years as a piano teacher in Kharkov (then Russia and now Ukraine) he settled in Athens and worked with his great friend Raam Ravi. An admirer of Richard Wagner, Rimsky-Korsakoff, Kostis Palamas, and Nikos Kazantzakis, he set himself the life goal of establishing a Greek "national school" of music, based on the ideas of the Russian national composers, on western musical achievements and on modern Greek folk music, poetry and myth^[1]. He thus founded in 1919 the Hellenic Conservatory and in 1926 the National Conservatoire. He wrote three symphonies and five operas, one piano concerto and one violin concertino, other symphonic works, chamber music and numerous songs and piano works. He held various public posts and was elected member of the Academy of Athens. A passionate composer, he has a personal post romantic idiom characterised by his rich harmonies and orchestrations, complex counterpoint, his long eastern melodies and the frequent use of Greek folk rhythms. A preoccupation with love and death transcends all five of his music dramas.

References[link]

External links[link]

• Manolis Kalomiris
• Recording of Kalomiris Symphonic Concerto for Piano and Orchestra (Youtube)

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This article relies on references to primary sources or sources affiliated with the subject, rather than references from independent authors and third-party publications. Please add citations from reliable sources. (March 2011)

Konstantinos Paliatsaras is a Greek operatic tenor.

Early life and education[link]

Born in Athens, Greece, Paliatsaras was attracted to Opera immediately after hearing Maria Callas at the age of 7. He was taught at the National Concervatoire in Athens by Professor Maggie Karatza and at the Royal Academy of Music in London by Professor Constance Shacklock. He also studied with Maestro Andreas Paridis.^[when?]

Career[link]

Paliatsarasd debuted in 1987 at the National Greek Opera, as Alfredo in La Traviata followed by many leading roles, including Macduff (Macbeth), Don Carlos, Don Ottavio in Don Giovanni, Alfred and Prince Orlovsky in die Fledermaus, Rossillon in Die Lustige Witwe 1992,2000, Die Hexe in Hansel und Gretel 1990, Almaviva in Il Barbiere di Siviglia, Nicias in Thais, Shober in Dreimadelhaus, Jimmy in the Rise and Fall of the city of Mahagonny 1999, Prince Shuisky and the fool in Boris Godunov, the fisherman in Die Kluge,La vie Parisienne,Les Contes de Hoffman Ariadne auf Naxos,Salome, Fadinard in Il Capello di paglia di Firenze 2001 and 2003, the latest in Mozart's Die Entfuhrung aus dem Serail 2007.

He was in a partnership with the baroque ensemble Capriccio Stravagante Skip Sempe first at the inauguration opening of the Dimitri Mitropoulos hall, part of the Athens Megaron Concert Hall. At the Athens Megaron he also appeared as Apollo in Monteverdi' s Orfeo with I Solisti Veneti, Carmen with Agnes Baltsa and Mahagonny.

A major landmark in his career was the tour in 30 cities and towns in France as Macheath in Kurt Weill's The Threepenny Opera with opera Eclate culminating in Paris 1990. In France he sung Verdi's Requiem at Angulemes,Cognac and Ruffec cathedrals 1990. Paliatsaras also presented Yiannis Markopoulos Liturgy of Orfeus in Vienna 1993 Brussels,Buenos Aires2005 Ephesus 2004 Limassol,Athens and Ancient Marathon 2006. In the city of Thessalonika Paliatsaras sung Paris in Offenbach's La Belle Helene, Don Ottavio and Nozze di Figaro. He recorded Monteverdi's Il Combattimento di Tancredi e Clorinda for DHM,BMG with Capriccio Stravagante a performance that was honored with the Diapason d'Or 1992 reissued in 2004, giving a world tour in Cologne, Monaco, Paris, Normandie 1998, New York, and Seattle U.S.A. At the Teatro Olympico,Vicenza he sung the role of Apollo in Marco da Gaglianos opera la Dafne.

With the composer Vangelis, he recorded the CD El Greco with soprano Monserrat Caballe for Warner Bros. Has also appeared in many films, notably the Greek version of Walt Disney's The Hunchback of Notre Dame singing the role of Clopin in Greek with great success. His most recent appearance in 2009 was as Alfredo in La Traviata at the municipal Theater of Kalamata,Greece in May and a concert in October at the Alexandria Opera House in Egypt. In April 2010 Haendel "Acis and Galatea" with the Athens singers Theatro Tehnis Karolos Koun Athens.

Films[link]

• Oh Babylon (1989)
• The Hunchback of Notre Dame (Greek version) (1996)
• The Girl of Mani (1986)
• Zoe (1995)
• Absences (Απουσίες) (1987)

Discography[link]

• ALEXANDER (Sony Music) - 2004
• EL GRECO (Warner) - 1998
• REPRISE (Warner) - 1999
• Il Combattimento di Tancredi e Clorinda (DHM-BMG) - 1993
• Hristougenna Me Tin Katy - 1998
• Under Acropolis lights - Paschalis Tonios (FM Records)
• Foros Timis Ston Greco
• EDMEA TETUA - Mixalis Koumpios (FM Records)

Repertoire[link]

• Claudio Monteverdi
  • Il Combattimento di Tancredi e Clorinda (Testo-Tancredi)
  • L'Orfeo (Apollo)
  • Il Ritorno d'Ulisse in Patria (Ulisse)
  • Schutz Weihnachtshistorie -Evangelist
  • Die Sieben Worte am Kreuz-Christ
  • Haendel Messiah
  • Il Pastor Fido
  • Acis and Galatea
  • Bach-St Matthew Passion
  • St John Passion
  • Da Gagliano-La Dafne
  • Mozart-Le Nozze di Figaro
  • Don Giovanni
  • Die Entfuhrung aus dem Serail
  • Donizetti-Lucia di Lammermoor
  • Don Pasquale
  • Rossini-Il Barbiere di Siviglia
  • Verdi-La Traviata
  • Macbeth
  • Don Carlos
  • Orietta di Lesbo
  • Requiem
  • Bizet-Carmen
  • Massenet-Thais
  • Offenbach-The Tales of Hoffmann
  • La vie Parisienne
  • La Belle Helene
  • Massenet- Don Quichotte
  • Mussorgsky-Boris Godunov
  • Shostakovich-Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk
  • Tchaikovsky-Eugene Onegin
  • Richard Strauss-Ariadne auf Naxos
  • Salome
  • Orff-Die Kluge
  • Weill-Die Dreigroschenoper
  • Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny
  • Humperdinck-Hansel und Gretel
  • Strauss-Die Fledermaus
  • Lehar-Die Lustige Witwe
  • Britten-Peter Grimes
  • Albert Herring
  • Puccini-Madama Butterfly
  • Gianni Schicchi
  • Kalomiris-O Protomastoras
  • Sissilianos- i Fotia
  • Theodorakis-Kostas Karyotakis
  • Nezeritis-Psalmi tou David
  • Lena Platonos and Dimitris Marangopoulos-Asterinos and Chrissomaloussa
  • Shubert- Die Dreimadelhauss
  • Sakellaridis-O Vaftistikos

References[link]

• The Athens Singers Acis & Galatea
• Discography
• Filmography
• Επίτομη ιστορία του Ελληνικού μελοδράματος και της Εθνικής Λυρικής Σκηνής (ΚΤΗΜΑΤΙΚΗ ΤΡΑΠΕΖΑ ΑΘΗΝΑ 1989)
• vangelismovements
• Soundsofnepal

External links[link]

1. Konstantinos Paliatsaras in Cyprus Operatic Stage
2. CAPRICCIO STRAVAGANTE
3. Konstantinos Paliatsaras Home page

Zubin Mehta, 2007)

Zubin Mehta (ज़ुबिन मेहता); pronounced [ˈzuːbɪn ˈmeːɦt̪aː] (born 29 April 1936) is an Indian conductor of western classical music. He is the Music Director for Life of the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra.

Biography[link]

Zubin Mehta was born into a Parsi family in Bombay, British India, the son of Mehli and Tehmina Mehta. His father Mehli Mehta was a violinist and founding conductor of the Bombay Symphony Orchestra. Mehta is an alumnus of St. Mary's School, Mumbai, and St. Xavier's College, Mumbai. Mehta initially intended to study medicine, but eventually became a music student in Vienna at the age of 18, under Hans Swarowsky. Also at the same academy along with Mehta were conductor Claudio Abbado and conductor–pianist Daniel Barenboim.

Mehta's first marriage was to Canadian soprano Carmen Lasky in 1958. They have a son, Mervon and a daughter, Zarina. In 1964, they divorced.^[1] Two years after the divorce, Carmen married Zubin's brother, Zarin Mehta, now the Executive Director of the New York Philharmonic. In July 1969, Mehta married Nancy Kovack, a former American film and television actress.^[2] Mehta is a permanent resident of the United States, but retains his Indian citizenship.

Conducting career[link]

Zubin Mehta conducting the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra in Mumbai, October 2008

In 1958, Mehta made his conducting debut in Vienna. The same year he won the International Conducting Competition in Liverpool and was appointed assistant conductor of the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic. Mehta soon rose to the rank of chief conductor when he was made Music Director of the Montreal Symphony Orchestra in 1960, a post he held until 1967. In 1961, he was named assistant conductor of the Los Angeles Philharmonic; however, the orchestra's music director designate, Georg Solti, was not consulted on the appointment, and Solti subsequently resigned in protest;^[3] soon after, Mehta himself was named Music Director of the orchestra, and held the post from 1962 to 1978.

In 1978 Mehta became the Music Director and Principal Conductor of the New York Philharmonic and remained there until his resignation in 1991, becoming the longest holder of the post.

The Israel Philharmonic Orchestra (IPO) appointed Mehta its Music Advisor in 1969, Music Director in 1977, and made him its Music Director for Life in 1981.^[4]

Since 1985, Mehta has been chief conductor of the Teatro del Maggio Musicale Fiorentino in Florence. Additionally, from 1998 until 2006, Mehta was Music Director of the Bavarian State Opera in Munich. The Munich Philharmonic named him its Honorary Conductor. Since 2005, Mehta has been the main conductor (together with Lorin Maazel) of the Palau de les Arts, the new opera house of the Ciutat de les Arts i les Ciències, in Valencia, Spain.

Mehta conducted the Vienna New Year's Concert in the years 1990, 1995, 1998 and 2007. He has also made a recording of Indian instrumentalist Ravi Shankar's Sitar Concerto No. 2, with Shankar and the London Philharmonic Orchestra.

1990s[link]

In 1990, he conducted the Orchestra del Maggio Musicale Fiorentino and the Orchestra del Teatro dell'Opera di Roma in the first ever Three Tenors concert in Rome, joining the tenors again in 1994 at the Dodger Stadium, Los Angeles. In between those appearances he conducted the historic 1992 production of Tosca in which each act took place in the actual setting and at the actual time specified in the score. This production starred Catherine Malfitano in the title role, Plácido Domingo as Cavaradossi and Ruggero Raimondi as Baron Scarpia. Act I was telecast live from Rome's basilica of Sant'Andrea della Valle on Saturday, 11 July, at noon (Central European Daylight Savings Time); act II was telecast later that evening from the Palazzo Farnese at 9:40 p.m.; act III was telecast live on Sunday, 12 July, at 7:00 am from the Castel Sant'Angelo, also known as Hadrian's Tomb.

In June 1994, Mehta performed the Mozart Requiem, along with the members of the Sarajevo Symphony Orchestra and Chorus at the ruins of Sarajevo's National Library, in a fund raising concert for the victims of armed conflict and remembrance of the thousands of people killed in the Yugoslav wars. On 29 August 1999, he conducted Mahler Symphony No. 2 (Resurrection), at the vicinity of Buchenwald concentration camp in the German city of Weimar, with both the Bavarian State Orchestra and the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra, sitting alongside each other. He toured his native country India and home city Mumbai (Bombay) in 1984, with the New York Philharmonic, and again in November–December 1994, with the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra, along with soloists Itzhak Perlman and Gil Shaham. In 1997 and 1998, Mehta worked in collaboration with Chinese film director Zhang Yimou on a production of the opera Turandot by Giacomo Puccini which they took to Florence, Italy, and then to Beijing, China, where it was staged, in its actual surroundings, in the Forbidden City with over 300 extras and 300 soldiers. for nine historic performances. The making of this production was chronicled in a documentary called The Turandot Project which Mehta narrated.

2000s[link]

Zubin Mehta, 2010

On 29 November 2005 Mehta appeared with the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra performing Bruckner's Symphony No. 8. On 26 December 2005, the first anniversary of the Indian Ocean Tsunami, Mehta and the Bavarian State Orchestra performed for the first time in Chennai (formerly called Madras) at the Madras Music Academy. This tsunami memorial concert was organised by the Madras German consulate along with the Max-Mueller Bhavan/Goethe-Institut. 2006 was his last year with the Bavarian State Orchestra.

Performance style[link]

Mehta received praise early in his career for dynamic interpretations of the large scale symphonic music of Anton Bruckner, Richard Strauss, Gustav Mahler and Franz Schmidt. His conducting is renowned as being flamboyant, vigorous and forceful.

Honors and awards[link]

Mehta at a ceremony to receive a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in March 2011

Mehta's name is mentioned in the song "Billy the Mountain" on the 1972 album Just Another Band from L.A. by Frank Zappa and The Mothers of Invention.

At the Israel Prize ceremony in 1991, Mehta was awarded a special prize in recognition of his unique devotion to Israel and to the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra.

In 1995, Laureate of the Wolf Prize in Arts.

In 1999, Mehta was presented the "Lifetime Achievement Peace and Tolerance Award" of the United Nations.

The Government of India honoured Mehta in 1966 with the Padma Bhushan and in 2001 with India's second highest civilian award, the Padma Vibhushan.^[5]

In 2005, he was voted the 117th-greatest Israeli of all time, in a poll by the Israeli news website Ynet to determine whom the general public considered the 200 Greatest Israelis.^[6]

In September 2006 the Kennedy Center announced Mehta as one of the recipients of that year's Kennedy Center Honors, presented on 2 December 2006.

On 3 February 2007, Mehta was the recipient of the Second Annual Bridgebuilder Award at Loyola Marymount University.

In 2007 he received the prestigious Dan David Prize.

Conductor Karl Böhm awarded Mehta the Nikisch Ring – the Vienna Philharmonic Ring of Honor.

Mehta is an honorary citizen of Florence and Tel Aviv. He was made an honorary member of the Vienna State Opera in 1997. In 2001 he was bestowed the title of "Honorary Conductor" of the Vienna Philharmonic and in 2004 the Munich Philharmonic awarded him the same title, as did the Los Angeles Philharmonic and the Teatro del Maggio Musicale Fiorentino in 2006. At the end of his tenure with the Bavarian State Opera he was named Honorary Conductor of the Bavarian State Orchestra and Honorary Member of the Bavarian State Opera, and the Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde, Wien, appointed him honorary member in November 2007.

In October 2008, Mehta received the Praemium Imperiale (World Culture Prize in Memory of His Imperial Highness Prince Takamatsu), Japan.

On 1 March 2011, Mehta received the 2,434th star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

On 2 October 2011 he received the Echo Klassik in Berlin, for his life's work.^[7]

Films[link]

Mehta's life has been documented in Terry Sanders' film Portrait of Zubin Mehta. A documentary film about Mehta, Zubin and I, was produced by the grandson of an Israeli harpist who played with the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra before Mehta assumed the helm. The filmmaker joins the orchestra on a tour of Mumbai and meets with him for two interviews, in India and Tel Aviv.^[8]

In Christopher Nupen's 1969 documentary The Trout about a performance of Schubert's Trout Quintet in London by Jacqueline du Pré, Daniel Barenboim, Pinchas Zukerman and Itzhak Perlman, Mehta plays the double bass.^[9]

Educational projects[link]

In 2009, Mehta established Mifneh (Hebrew for "change"), a music education program for Israeli Arabs, in cooperation with Bank Leumi and the Arab-Israel Bank. Three schools, in Shfaram, the Jezreel Valley and Nazareth, are taking part in the pilot project.^[10]

He and his brother Zarin constitute the Advisor Council of the Mehli Mehta Foundation.^[11]

See also[link]

• List of Israel Prize recipients

References[link]

Bibliography[link]

• Martin Bookspan and Ross Yockey, Zubin: The Zubin Mehta Story
• Renate von Matuschka, Die Partitur meines Lebens.

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Zubin Mehta

• Official website
• Zubin Mehta at Allmusic
• Zubin Mehta at the Internet Movie Database
• Dan David Prize laureate 2007