Carl Andre (born September 16, 1935) is an American minimalist artist recognized for his ordered linear format and grid format sculptures. His sculptures range from large public artworks (such as Stone Field Sculpture, 1977 in Hartford, CT^[1] and Lament for the Children, 1976^[2] in Long Island City, NY) to more intimate tile patterns arranged on the floor of an exhibition space (such as 144 Lead Square, 1969^[3] or Twenty-fifth Steel Cardinal, 1974). In 1988, Andre was tried and acquitted in the death of his wife, artist Ana Mendieta.

Biography[link]

Andre was born in Quincy, MA. He completed primary and secondary schooling in the Quincy public school system and studied art at Phillips Academy in Andover, MA from 1951 to 1953.^[4] While at Phillips Academy he became friends with Hollis Frampton who would later influence Andre's radical approach to sculpture through their conversations about art^[5] and through introductions to other artists.^[6]

Andre served in the U.S. Army in North Carolina 1955-56 and moved to New York City in 1956. While in New York, Frampton introduced Andre to Constantin Brâncuşi through whom Andre became re-acquainted with a former classmate from Phillips Academy, Frank Stella, in 1958. Andre shared studio space with Stella from 1958 through 1960.^[6]

Andre's early work in wood may have been inspired by Brâncuşi, but his conversations with Stella about space and form led him in a different direction. While sharing a studio with Stella, Andre developed a series of wooden "cut" sculptures^[5] (such as Radial Arm Saw cut sculpture, 1959, and Maple Spindle Exercise, 1959). Stella is noted as having said to Andre (regarding hunks of wood removed from Andre's sculpture) "Carl, that's sculpture, too."^[7]

From 1960-64 Andre worked as freight brakeman and conductor in New Jersey for the Pennsylvania Railroad. The experience with blue collar labor and the ordered nature of conducting freight trains would have a later influence on Andre's sculpture and artistic personality. For example, it was not uncommon for Andre to dress in overalls and a blue work shirt, even to the most formal occasions."^[4]

During this period, Andre focused mainly on writing and there is little notable sculpture on record between 1960 and 1965. The poetry would resurface later, most notably in a book (finally published in 1980 by NYU press) called 12 Dialogues in which Andre and Frampton took turns responding to one another at a typewriter using mainly poetry and free-form essay-like texts.^[5] Andre's concrete poetry has exhibited in the United States and Europe, a comprehensive collection of which is in the collection of the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam.^[8]

In 1965 he had his first public exhibition of work in the "Shape and Structure" show curated by Henry Geldzahler at the Tibor de Nagy Gallery.^[9]

Andre's controversial "Lever" was included in the seminal 1966 show at the Jewish Museum in New York entitled Primary Structures.

In 1969 Andre helped organize the Art Workers Coalition.

In 1970 he had a one man exhibition at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, and has had one man exhibitions and participated in group shows in major museums, galleries, and kunsthalles throughout America and Europe.

In 1972, Britain's Tate Gallery acquired Andre's Equivalent VIII, an arrangement of fireplace bricks. The piece was exhibited several times without incident, but became the center of controversy in 1976 after being featured in an article in The Sunday Times and later being defaced with paint. The "Bricks controversy" became one of the most famous public debates in Britain about contemporary art.^[10][11]

In 1979 Andre first met Ana Mendieta through a mutual friendship with artists Leon Golub and Nancy Spero at AIR Gallery in New York City.^[4] Andre and Mendieta eventually married in 1985, but the relationship ended in tragedy. Mendieta fell to her death from Andre's 34th story apartment window in 1985 after an argument with Andre. Andre was charged with second degree murder. He elected to be tried before a judge with no jury. In 1988 Andre was acquitted of all charges related to Mendieta's death.^[12]

He is represented by the Paula Cooper Gallery in New York, by Sadie Coles HQ in London, and Yvon Lambert Gallery in Paris.

Bibliography[link]

• Carl Andre - America Drill, 2003, Les Maîtres de Forme Contemporains, mfc-michèle didier and Paula Cooper Gallery
• Busch, Julia M. (1974). A Decade of Sculpture: the New Media in the 1960's. London: Associated University Presses. ISBN 0-87982-007-1. 
• Christel Sauer: Carl Andre: Cuts, DE/EN,Basel 2011, ISBN 978-3-905777-10-9
• Rider, Alistair. Carl Andre: Things in their Elements. London: Phaidon Press, 2011.

References[link]

External links[link]

• Official Website
• Carl Andre - Biography and Analysis from the Art Story Foundation website
• Short biography from the Guggenheim Museum
• Carl Andre at Ace Gallery
• Carl Andre Work & Extended Biography Timeline of Exhibitions 1964–Present
• Yvon Lambert, agent.
• Carl Andre at the Tate Modern
• Brooklyn Rail In Conversation: Carl Andre with Michèle Gerber Klein and Phong Bui

A major contributor to this article appears to have a close connection with its subject. It may require cleanup to comply with Wikipedia's content policies, particularly neutral point of view. Please discuss further on the talk page. (February 2012)

Rosa Barba (born 1972, Agrigento, Italy) is an visual artist based in Berlin.

Biography[link]

Barba studied Film and Visual Arts at the Academy of Media Arts Cologne (1995-2000). Later held a Residency at the Rijksakademie van Beeldende Kunsten, Amsterdam (2003-2004). She works in a variety of media and formats including film, sculpture, installation and publications, and held exhibitions at Tate Modern, Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, Galerie nationale du Jeu de Paume, Kunsthaus Zürich, Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Castilla y León and Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis.^{[citation needed]}

Awards[link]

This section of a biographical article needs additional citations for verification. Please help by adding reliable sources. Contentious material about living persons that is unsourced or poorly sourced must be removed immediately, especially if potentially libelous or harmful. (February 2012)

• Premio ACACIA 2012
• Nam June Paik Award, Award Winner (2010)
• Premio Italia Arte Contemporanea, MAXXI – National Museum of the 21st Century Arts, Rome, Italy, Award Nominee
• Prix du Centre pour l’Image Contemporaine, Genève,(12th Biennale of moving Image), Switzerland, Award Winner
• International Film Festival Rotterdam, Netherlands, nominated for Tiger Award (2007)
• HAP-Grieshaber Preis, Kunstfonds, Bonn, Germany, Award Winner (2006)
• Chargesheimer Foto-Film-Video, Price, Cologne, Germany, Award Winner(2002)
• Hermann Claasen Förderpreis, Köln, Germany, Award Winner (2001)

Publications[link]

• Barba, Rosa (2001). In Conversation With. Mousse Publishing. pp. 96. ISBN 978-88-96501-72-6. 

• Barba, Rosa (2011). White Is an Image. Hatje Cantz. pp. 293. ISBN 978-3-7757-3019-8. 

• Barba, Rosa (2003). Off Sites/Sets. Walther König Buchhandlung. ISBN 978-3-88375-632-5. 

References[link]

This article includes a list of references, related reading or external links, but its sources remain unclear because it lacks inline citations. Please improve this article by introducing more precise citations. (February 2012)

• web project on Dia Art Foundation, New York
• Carlier I Gebauer Gallery, Berlin
• Gio Marconi, Milan
• Nam June Paik Award 2010
• Liverpool Biennial

External links[link]

• Official website

Paula Cooper (born August 25, 1969^[1] in Gary, Indiana, United States) was sentenced to death by electrocution on July 11, 1986 for the murder of 78-year-old Ruth Pelke. Because Cooper was only 15 at the time of the murder, her sentence attracted an international uproar, including a condemnation from Pope John Paul II. In 1989, her sentence was commuted to 60 years in prison.^[2]

Sentencing and fallout[link]

Cooper's public defender advised her to plead guilty. At sentencing, Lake County prosecutor James McNew portrayed Cooper as a social misfit beyond any hope of rehabilitation and asked for the death penalty. The defense presented evidence that Cooper was a chronic runaway who had been physically abused and forced to watch the rape of her mother. The defense also stated that Cooper's mother had attempted to kill her at one point. Cooper was found guilty, and Judge James Kimbrough imposed the death penalty.^[3]

Cooper was sent to Death Row at Indiana Women's Prison in Indianapolis. Her case was taken up by attorney Monica Foster, who organized a campaign that had strong public support, especially in Europe. The campaign presented an appeal signed by two million people to the Indiana Supreme Court. Pope John Paul II made a personal appeal to Indiana Governor Robert Orr in September 1987.^[4] A separate appeal to the United Nations received one million signatures.^[5]

Cooper's case was profiled on 60 Minutes and various European television programs. She was front-page news in her hometown of Gary for a scandal in which several prison guards had sex with her in her cell; pregnancy tests were performed, which came out negative.^[3]

Judge Kimbrough died, and the appeals process was slowed as a replacement was chosen. In 1987, the Indiana legislature passed a bill raising the minimum age for a defendant in a death penalty case from 10 years old to 16 years old. Although the change was a reaction to Cooper's case, the legislature made it clear that the change did not affect Cooper's death sentence. In 1988, a Supreme Court decision, Thompson v. Oklahoma, barred the death penalty for defendants under the age of 16 at the time of the crime. The Indiana Supreme Court considered both of these developments, and, on July 3, 1989, the court heard arguments and reduced Cooper's sentence to life in prison.^[2] A New York Times editorial that month called the court's decision "brave" and said that the law on which her death sentence was based was "medieval" (it allowed execution of children as young as 10).^[6]

Aftermath[link]

Cooper earned a GED and took college correspondence courses while in prison.^[7] As of 2011, she is projected to be released in 2013.^[8] Although she was sentenced to 60 years, Indiana law dictates that offenders earn one day off from their sentence for each day served with good behavior.

Pelke's grandson Bill Pelke initially favored the death penalty for Cooper but joined the movement opposing it in 1987. He wrote about his forgiveness of Cooper in a 2003 book Journey of Hope.^[9]

References[link]

1. ^ "Prosecution page". http://www.clarkprosecutor.org/html/death/row/cooperp.htm. Retrieved 2007-05-26. 
2. ^ ^{a b} "Woman's Execution for Murder at 15 Is Barred". Associated Press. 1989-07-13. 
3. ^ ^{a b} "Death Sentence At 16 Rekindles Debate On Justice For Juveniles". New York Times. 1986-11-02. p. A26. 
4. ^ "Pope Urges Indiana Not to Execute Woman". New York Times. 1987-09-27. p. 13A. 
5. ^ "Paula Cooper Case Records". Indiana Historical Society. http://www.indianahistory.org/library/manuscripts/collection_guides/m0565.html. Retrieved 2007-05-26. 
6. ^ "Topics of The Times; A Murderous Child". New York Times. 1989-07-17. p. 16A. 
7. ^ Penn, Mary Sue (May 1995). "Leaven of Forgiveness". Sojourner's Magazine. http://www.sojo.net/index.cfm?action=magazine.article&issue=soj9505&article=950526. Retrieved 2007-05-26. 
8. ^ "Indiana Offender Database Search". http://www.in.gov/apps/indcorrection/ofs/?offnum=864800&search2.x=30&search2.y=16. Retrieved 2008-01-06. 
9. ^ "Amazon.com description". http://www.amazon.com/dp/1413419917/. Retrieved 2007-05-26. 

External links[link]

• Offender Data for Paula Cooper #864800 from the Indiana Department of Correction web site

Carl Orff, aquatint etching

Carl Orff ((1895-07-10)July 10, 1895 – March 29, 1982(1982-03-29)) was a 20th-century German composer, best known for his cantata Carmina Burana (1937). In addition to his career as a composer, Orff developed an influential method of music education for children.

Life[link]

Early life[link]

Orff was born in Munich on July 10, 1895. His family was Bavarian and was active in the Army of the German Empire.

Orff started studying the piano at the age of five, and he also took organ and cello lessons. However, he was more interested in composing original music than in studying to be a performer. Orff wrote and staged puppet shows for his family, composing music for piano, violin, zither, and glockenspiel to accompany them. He had a short story published in a children's magazine in 1905 and started to write a book about nature. In his spare time he enjoyed collecting insects.

By the time he was a teenager, Orff was writing songs, although he had not studied harmony or composition; his mother helped him set down his first works in musical notation. Orff wrote his own texts and he learned the art of composing, without a teacher, by studying classical masterworks on his own.

In 1911, at age 16, some of Orff's music was published.^[1] Many of his youthful works were songs, often settings of German poetry. They fell into the style of Richard Strauss and other German composers of the day, but with hints of what would become Orff's distinctive musical language.

In 1911/1912, Orff wrote Also sprach Zarathustra (Thus Spoke Zarathustra), Op. 14, a large work for baritone voice, three choruses and orchestra, based on a passage from Friedrich Nietzsche's philosophical novel of the same title.^[2][3] The following year, he composed an opera, Gisei, das Opfer (Gisei, the Sacrifice). Influenced by the French Impressionist composer Claude Debussy, he began to use colorful, unusual combinations of instruments in his orchestration.

World War I[link]

Moser's Musik-Lexikon states that Orff studied at the Munich Academy of Music until 1914. He then served in the German Army during World War I, when he was severely injured and nearly killed in the cave in of a trench. Afterwards, he held various positions at opera houses in Mannheim and Darmstadt, later returning to Munich to pursue his music studies.

The 1920s[link]

In the mid-1920s, Orff began to formulate a concept he called "elementare Musik", or elemental music, which was based on the unity of the arts symbolized by the ancient Greek Muses and involved tone, dance, poetry, image, design, and theatrical gesture. Like many other composers of the time, he was influenced by the Russian-French émigré Igor Stravinsky. But while others followed the cool, balanced "neoclassic" works of Stravinsky, it was works like his Les noces (The Wedding), a pounding, quasi-folkloric evocation of prehistoric wedding rites, that appealed to Orff. He also began adapting musical works of earlier eras for contemporary theatrical presentation, including Claudio Monteverdi's opera L'Orfeo (1607). Orff's German version, Orpheus, was staged under Orff's direction in 1925 in Mannheim, Germany, using some of the instruments that had been used in the original 1607 performance. The passionately declaimed opera of Monteverdi's era was almost unknown in the 1920s, however, and Orff's production met with reactions ranging from incomprehension to ridicule.

In 1924 Dorothee Günther and Orff founded the Günther School for gymnastics, music, and dance in Munich. Orff was there as the head of a department from 1925 until the end of his life, and he worked with musical beginners. There he developed his theories of music education, having constant contact with children. In 1930, Orff published a manual titled Schulwerk, in which he shares his method of conducting. Before writing Carmina Burana, Orff also edited 17th-century operas. However, these various activities brought Orff very little money.

The Nazi era[link]

Orff's relationship with German fascism and the Nazi Party has been a matter of considerable debate and analysis. His Carmina Burana was hugely popular in Nazi Germany after its premiere in Frankfurt in 1937. Given Orff's previous lack of commercial success, the monetary factor of Carmina Burana's acclaim was significant to him. But the composition, with its unfamiliar rhythms, was also denounced with racist taunts.^[4] He was one of the few German composers under the Nazi regime who responded to the official call to write new incidental music for A Midsummer Night's Dream after the music of Felix Mendelssohn had been banned – others refused to cooperate in this.^[5] Defenders of Orff note that he had already composed music for this play as early as 1917 and 1927, long before this was a favor for the Nazi government.

Orff was a friend of Kurt Huber, one of the founders of the resistance movement Die Weiße Rose (the White Rose), who was condemned to death by the Volksgerichtshof and executed by the Nazis in 1943. Orff by happenstance called at Huber's house on the day after his arrest. Huber's distraught wife begged Orff to use his influence to help her husband, but Orff denied her request. If his friendship with Huber came out, he told her, he would be "ruined". Huber's wife never saw Orff again. Wracked by guilt, Orff would later write a letter to his late friend Huber, imploring him for forgiveness.^[6][7] According to Canadian historian Michael H. Kater, Orff claimed at the end of the war to his Allied interrogators that he was a founding member of the White Rose and was released.^[8] However, in Orff's denazification file, which has been discovered by Viennese historian Oliver Rathkolb in 1999, no remark on the White Rose is recorded.^[9]

Nonetheless, he had a long friendship with German-Jewish musicologist, composer and refugee Erich Katz,^[10] who fled Nazi Germany in 1939.

Following World War II[link]

Bust of Carl Orff in the Munich Hall of Fame (2009)

Following World War II, during his denazification process in Bad Homburg, Orff claimed to Newell Jenkins, an officer in the U.S. Army, and later an orchestra conductor, that he had helped establish the "White Rose" resistance movement in Germany.^[6] There was no evidence for this other than his own word, and other sources dispute his claim. The Canadian historian Michael H. Kater made a particularly strong case in his earlier writings that Orff collaborated with Nazi German authorities.^[11] However, in Composers of the Nazi Era: Eight Portraits (2000) Kater rescinded his earlier accusations to some extent. Orff's assertion that he had been anti-Nazi during the war was accepted by the American denazification authorities, who changed his previous category of "gray unacceptable" to "gray acceptable", enabling him to continue to compose for public presentation, and to enjoy the royalties that the popularity of Carmina Burana had earned for him.^[12]

Most of Orff's later works – Antigonae (1949), Oedipus der Tyrann (Oedipus the Tyrant, 1958), Prometheus (1968), and De temporum fine comoedia (Play on the End of Times, 1971) – were based on texts or topics from antiquity. They extend the language of Carmina Burana in interesting ways, but they are expensive to stage and (on Orff's own admission) are not operas in the conventional sense. Live performances of them have been few, even in Germany.

Personal life[link]

Orff was married four times: Alice Solscher (m. 1920, div. 1925), Alice Willert (m. 1939, div. 1953), Luise Rinser (m. 1954, div. 1959) and Liselotte Schmitz (m. 1960). His only child Godela, from his first marriage, was born in 1921. She was later rejected by the composer. "He had his life and that was that," she tells Tony Palmer in the documentary O Fortuna.^[13]

Death[link]

When Carl Orff died in Munich in 1982 at the age of 86, he had lived through four epochs in the course of his life: the German Empire, the Weimar Republic, Nazi Germany and the post World War II West German Bundesrepublik. Orff was buried in the Baroque church of the beer-brewing Benedictine priory of Andechs, south of Munich. His tombstone bears his name, his dates of birth and death, and the Latin inscription "Summus Finis" (the ultimate goal).

Works[link]

Musical work[link]

	Fortuna Imperatrix Mundi noicon 30 seconds from Carmina Burana by Carl Orff
Problems listening to this file? See media help.

Orff is most known for Carmina Burana (1936), a "scenic cantata". It is the first of a trilogy that also includes Catulli Carmina and Trionfo di Afrodite. Carmina Burana reflected his interest in medieval German poetry. Together the trilogy is called Trionfi, or "Triumphs". The composer described it as the celebration of the triumph of the human spirit through sexual and holistic balance. The work was based on thirteenth-century poetry found in a manuscript dubbed the Codex latinus monacensis found in the Benedictine monastery of Benediktbeuern in 1803 and written by the Goliards; this collection is also known as Carmina Burana. While "modern" in some of his compositional techniques, Orff was able to capture the spirit of the medieval period in this trilogy, with infectious rhythms and easy tonalities. The medieval poems, written in Latin and an early form of German, are often racy, but without descending into smut. "Fortuna Imperatrix Mundi", commonly known as "O Fortuna", from Carmina Burana is often used to denote primal forces, for example in the Oliver Stone movie The Doors..^[14] The work's association with fascism also led Pier Paolo Pasolini to use the movement "Veris Leta Facies" to accompany the concluding scenes of torture and murder in his final film Salò, or the 120 Days of Sodom.^[15]

With the success of Carmina Burana, Orff disowned all of his previous works except for Catulli Carmina and the Entrata (an orchestration of "The Bells" by William Byrd (1539–1623)), which were rewritten until acceptable by Orff. Later on, however, many of these earlier works were released (some even with Orff's approval). As an historical aside, Carmina Burana is probably the most famous piece of music composed and premiered in Nazi Germany. Carmina Burana was in fact so popular that Orff received a commission in Frankfurt to compose incidental music for A Midsummer Night's Dream, which was supposed to replace the banned music by Mendelssohn. After the war, he claimed not to be satisfied with the music and reworked it into the final version that was first performed in 1964.

Orff was reluctant to term any of his works simply operas in the traditional sense. His works Der Mond (The Moon, 1939) and Die Kluge (The Wise Woman, 1943), for example, he referred to as "Märchenoper" ("fairytale operas"). Both compositions feature the same "timeless" sound in that they do not employ any of the musical techniques of the period in which they were composed, with the intent that they be difficult to define as belonging to a particular era. Their melodies, rhythms and, with them, text appear in a union of words and music.

About his Antigonae (1949), Orff said specifically that it was not an opera, rather a Vertonung, a "musical setting", of the ancient tragedy. The text is an excellent German translation, by Friedrich Hölderlin, of the Sophocles play of the same name. The orchestration relies heavily on the percussion section, and is otherwise fairly simple. It has been labelled by some as minimalistic, which is most adequate in terms of the melodic line. The story of Antigone has a haunting similarity to the history of Sophie Scholl, heroine of the White Rose, and Orff may have been memorializing her in his opera.

Orff's last work, De Temporum Fine Comoedia (Play on the End of Times), had its premiere at the Salzburg Festival on August 20, 1973, performed by Herbert von Karajan and the WDR Symphony Orchestra Cologne and Chorus. In this highly personal work, Orff presented a mystery play, in which he summarized his view on the end of time, sung in Greek, German, and Latin.

Gassenhauer, which Orff composed with Gunild Keetman, was used as the theme music for Terrence Malick's film Badlands (1973). Hans Zimmer later reworked this music for his True Romance (1993) score.

Pedagogic work[link]

In pedagogical circles he is probably best remembered for his Schulwerk (School Work). Originally a set of pieces composed and published for the Güntherschule (students ranging from 12 to 22),^[16] this title was also used for his books based on radio broadcasts in Bavaria in 1949. These pieces are collectively called Musik für Kinder [Music for Children], and also use the term "Schulwerk". The Music for Children volumes were not designed to be performance pieces for the average child. Many of the parts are challenging for teachers to play. They were designed as examples of pieces that show the use of ostinati, bordun, and appropriate texts for children. Teachers using the volumes are encouraged to simplify the pieces, write original texts for the pieces and modify the instrumentation to adapt to the teacher's classroom situation.

Orff's ideas were developed, together with Gunild Keetman, into a very innovative approach to music education for children, known as the Orff Schulwerk. The music is elemental and combines movement, singing, playing, and improvisation.

List of compositions[link]

• Lamenti
  • Orpheus (1924, reworked 1939)
  • Klage der Ariadne (1925, reworked 1940)
  • Tanz der Spröden (1925, reworked 1940)

• Entrata for orchestra, after "The Bells" by William Byrd (1539–1623) (1928, reworked 1941)

• Orff Schulwerk
  • Musik für Kinder (with Gunild Keetmann) (1930–35, reworked 1950–54)

• Trionfi
  • Carmina Burana (1937)
  • Catulli Carmina (1943)
  • Trionfo di Afrodite (1953)

• Märchenstücke (Fairy tales)
  • Der Mond (1939)
  • Die Kluge (1943)
  • Ein Sommernachtstraum (1952, reworked 1962)

• Bairisches Welttheater (Bavarian world theatre)
  • Die Bernauerin (1947)
  • Astutuli (1953)
  • Comoedia de Christi Resurrectione (1956) – Easter Play
  • Ludus de Nato Infante Mirificus (1961) – Nativity play

• Theatrum Mundi
  • Antigonae (1949)
  • Oedipus der Tyrann (1959)
  • Prometheus (1968)
  • De Temporum Fine Comoedia (1973, reworked 1977)

References[link]

1. ^ e.g. Early Songs published by Schott Music and Songs and Chants recorded by WERGO
2. ^ Chronology by Carl Orff Center Munich
3. ^ Alberto Fassone. "Orff, Carl." in Grove Music Online. Oxford Music Online (accessed September 25, 2009) (Subscription required).
4. ^ "Carl Orff: Carmina Burana" Ev. Emmaus- Ölberg- Kirchengemeinde Berlin Kreuzberg. Retrieved June 26, 2011 (German)
5. ^ The New York Times. http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2009/07/09/arts/AP-EU-Germany-Nazis-Composers.html. ^{[dead link]}(Dead Link)
6. ^ ^{a b} Morrison, Richard (December 19, 2008). "Carl Orff the composer who lived a monstrous lie". The Times (UK). http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/music/article5366154.ece. Retrieved March 27, 2010. 
7. ^ Duchen, Jessica (December 4, 2008). "Dark heart of a masterpiece: Carmina Burana's famous chorus hides a murky Nazi past". The Independent (UK). http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/theatre-dance/features/dark-heart-of-a-masterpiece-carmina-buranas-famous-chorus-hides-a-murky-nazi-past-1050503.html. Retrieved March 27, 2010. 
8. ^ http://www.h-net.org/~german/articles/dennis1.html
9. ^ Komponist sein in einer bösen Zeit. Die Welt 11 February 1999
10. ^ List of items in Erich Katz Collection (PDF) Regis University. p. 6. Retrieved November 1, 2011
11. ^ cf. Review of "Carl Orff im Dritten Reich" by David B. Dennis, Loyola University Chicago (January 25, 1996)
12. ^ Kater, Michael H. (1995). "Carl Orff im Dritten Reich [Carl Orff in the Third Reich]" (in German) (PDF, 1.6 MB). Vierteljahrshefte für Zeitgeschichte 43 (1): 1–35. ISSN 0042-5702. http://www.ifz-muenchen.de/heftarchiv/1995_1_1_kater.pdf. 
13. ^ Martin Kettle "Secret of the White Rose", The Guardian, January 2, 2009
14. ^ IMDB entry for soundtrack of Oliver Stone's film The Doors (scroll to bottom)
15. ^ "Pasolini's Salo", review
16. ^ Carl Orff Documentation trans. Margaret Murray, published by Schott Music, 1978

Further reading[link]

• Michael H. Kater, "Carl Orff im Dritten Reich", Vierteljahrshefte für Zeitgeschichte 43, 1 (January 1995): 1–35.
• Michael H. Kater, Composers of the Nazi Era: Eight Portraits. New York: Oxford University Press, 2000.

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Carl Orff

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Carl Orff

• Carl Orff Foundation
• Orff Center, Munich
• Discography
• Carl Orff at the Internet Movie Database

André Rieu
Rieu in Atlantic City, NJ, in 2007
Background information
Birth name	André Léon Marie Nicolas Rieu
Born	(1949-10-01) 1 October 1949 (age 62)
Origin	Maastricht, Netherlands
Genres	Waltz
Occupations	Conductor, violinist
Instruments	Violin
Years active	1978–present
Labels	Denon Records , Philips
Website	www.andrerieu.com
Notable instruments
Stradivarius violin (1667)[1]

André Léon Marie Nicolas Rieu (born 1 October 1949) is a Dutch violinist, conductor, and composer best known for creating the waltz-playing Johann Strauss Orchestra.

Early life and studies[link]

The name Rieu is of French Huguenot origin.^[1] He began studying violin at the age of five. His father, of the same name, was conductor of the Maastricht Symphony Orchestra. From a very young age he developed a fascination with orchestra. He studied violin at the Conservatoire Royal in Liège and at the Conservatorium Maastricht, (1968–1973). His teachers included Jo Juda and Herman Krebbers. From 1974 to 1977, he attended the Music Academy in Brussels, studying with André Gertler, getting his degree "Premier Prix" from the Brussels Royal Conservatory.^[2]

Career[link]

At University he performed the Gold And Silver Waltz by Franz Lehár. Encouraged by the audience reaction he decided to pursue the waltz form. Rieu formed the Maastricht Salon Orchestra and performed as a violinist with the Limburg Symphony Orchestra. In 1987, he created the Johann Strauss Orchestra and his own production company. Since then, his melodramatic stage performances and rock-star demeanor have for some been associated with a revival of the waltz music category. André Rieu plays a 1667 Stradivarius violin.^[1]

In April 2009 (Dublin)/June 2009 (UK), he made a cameo appearance as himself on "Ramsay Street" in the long-running Australian soap opera Neighbours.^[3]

Johann Strauss Orchestra[link]

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The Orchestra began in 1998 with 21 members but now performs with between 80 and 150 musicians. At the time the Orchestra first toured Europe, there emerged a renewed interest in waltz music. The revival began in the Netherlands and was ignited by their recording of the Second Waltz from Shostakovich's Jazz Suites. As a result, Rieu became known as the waltz King.

Rieu and his orchestra have performed throughout Europe, in North America, and Japan. Winning a number of awards including two World Music Awards, their recordings have gone gold and platinum in many countries, including 8-times Platinum in the Netherlands. In September 2007 Rieu performed in Australia for the first time solo, without his Orchestra at the Eastland shopping centre in the Melbourne suburb of Ringwood playing "My Way" and "Waltzing Matilda"—and the next day appeared at Sydney's Arena Cove, Warringah Mashopping with the same set. Rieu and orchestra returned to Australia in November as part of his world tour. Rieu and his orchestra played 3 concerts at Melbourne's Telstra Dome from 13–15 November and continued their tour throughout Perth, Sydney, Brisbane and Adelaide, through to December 2008. The concert theme is 'A Romantic Vienna Night' and the set comprises a life-size reproduction of the Viennese imperial Schönbrunn Palace, complete with 2 ice-skating rinks, 2 Fountains, and a ballroom dance floor situated above and behind the Orchestra. Rieu's largest concert attendance to date in Australia was 38,000 on Saturday 15 November in Melbourne. The Perth concert did not feature the replica of the Viennese Palace as it was stated in the press because it would not fit into the front doors of Subiaco Oval.

He records both DVD and CD repertoire at his own recording studios in Maastricht in a wide range of classical music as well as popular and folk music plus music from well-known soundtracks and musical theatre. His lively orchestral presentations, in tandem with incessant marketing, have attracted worldwide audiences to this subgenre of classical music.

Some of his orchestra's performances have been broadcast in the United Kingdom and the United States on the PBS television network^[4] such as the 2003 airing of Andre Rieu Live in Dublin, filmed in Dublin, Ireland, and 2005's André Rieu Live in Tuscany filmed in the Piazza Della Repubblica in the village of Cortona in Tuscany.

Reception[link]

Eamon Kelly writing in The Australian newspaper, in an article that discusses the controversy that Rieu engenders, said: "He depicts his critics as members of a stuffy musical elite with narrow aesthetic tastes, yet regularly demeans in interviews music that is not to his taste and classical musicians who choose not to perform in his manner."^[5]

Of Rieu's popularity and the debate in the media over criticism of him, Eamon Kelly says: "It is disappointing to see professional journalists indulging in cheap, inaccurate stereotypes to dismiss criticism of Rieu."^[5] But he goes on to add: "Equally misguided are those who cursorily dismiss Rieu. Rieu's live and recorded performances have brought joy to millions of people. Few in his audiences are regular classical music attendees and it could be seen as promising that, via Rieu, they are listening to standards of the classical canon. The fact that Rieu's focus is on highly accessible, enjoyable repertoire is not an argument against his musical credentials."^[5]

Eamon Kelly further adds, after hearing the orchestra perform, that there is "no cause" for Rieu's boast his orchestra was "superior to the many other orchestras that specialise in ... Viennese and popular classical repertoire." Additionally, he found that in musical terms "the performance did not surpass playing standards in Australia's major symphony orchestras". He did add that the "oboist, Arthur Cordewener, provided the most impressive musical performance with a sublime introduction to an otherwise unremarkable performance of [Ravel's] Boléro."^[5]

David Templeton, writing in the magazine All Things Strings says:

Ironically, it is Rieu’s own success that has earned him a horse-drawn carriage full of criticism, a pot-shot laden backlash aimed chiefly at the calculated emotionalism and theatrical flourishes of his performances, which, according to many, only cheapen the classical-music experience. Classical radio stations avoid his music as they might avoid a leper in the mall, though—let’s just say it plain and clear—Rieu is a superb violinist.^[6]

Chris Boyd, a critic writing for Melbourne's Herald Sun newspaper, finds that he could not give a general criticism of the playing of Rieu, as, except for "a clean and lyrical solo in Waltzing Matilda", his main stage function was apparently "blarney and delegation". However, Boyd also comments that the quality of the artists that Rieu works with is "extraordinary". Boyd assesses the low points of the concert as the "Three Tenors-style" rendition of "Nessun dorma" which he finds was an "abomination", while saying the concert's highlights included "a sugar-shock sweet rendition" of "O mio babbino caro" as well as Strauss's Emperor Waltz and Blue Danube, Clarke's Trumpet Voluntary and the Boléro.^[7]

Personal life[link]

He is married to Marjorie, who works with him full-time as production manager, and has two sons, Marc and Pierre. He speaks (in order of fluency) Dutch, English, German, French, Italian and Spanish.

Honours[link]

• Knight of the Order of the Netherlands Lion (Netherlands, 2002)
• Honorary Medal of the Province of Limburg (Netherlands, 2009)
• Knight of the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres (France, 2009)

Selected discography[link]

References[link]

External links[link]

• André Rieu (official website)
• Official André Rieu Facebook page
• André Rieu on Twitter
• Official André Rieu YouTube Channel
• André Rieu's Official Australian website
• André Rieu (C Music TV Biography)
• André Rieu at Allmusic
• The Magic of Andre Rieu