"A rabble-rousing folk singer isn't the first person who comes to mind when drafting new lyrics for one of the most recognized pieces of classical music in the world. But British singer Billy Bragg, known for his politically charged pop songs, penned new lyrics for "Ode to Joy," the chorale finale of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony."
"Instantly recognizable, the triumphant refrains of "Ode to Joy" are traditionally set to "An die Freude," a German poem written in 1786 by Friedrich Schiller. The poem celebrates universal brotherhood and a common yearning for peace. In that sense, Beethoven and Bragg were a perfect match. -- Elina Shatkin, L.A. Times - 08/27/09"
"Instantly recognizable, the triumphant refrains of "Ode to Joy" are traditionally set to "An die Freude," a German poem written in 1786 by Friedrich Schiller. The poem celebrates universal brotherhood and a common yearning for peace. In that sense, Beethoven and Bragg were a perfect match. -- Elina Shatkin, L.A. Times - 08/27/09"
Beethoven Billy Bragg Ninth Concert
U.S. Premiere of Billy Bragg's new choral adaptation of
Beethoven's Ninth Symphony
At the Eli and Edythe Broad Stage, Santa Monica College
Performing Arts Center
1310 11th St (and Santa Monica Blvd.) Santa Monica, CA 90401
Saturday, August 29th, 7-9:30 pm
To Benefit Clergy and Laity United for Economic Justice, LA
$55 $75, and $100 tickets here: www.beethovenbragg.com Call
As you go through the the process of purchasing tickets on line you'll
be asked for a discount code. That code is BBB9, which automatically
takes off 15 percent from each ticket purchased
Billy Bragg is a legendary British songwriter. He has written some of
the most touching love songs by a pop artist, while at the same time
creating a large body of work that speaks to the social issues of our
time. Billy Bragg is the embodiment of the American social issue song
tradition that started with Woody Guthrie and Pete Seeger and produced
Bob Dylan. He has now turned his talents to rewriting of the libretto
for Beethoven's monumental Ninth Symphony, that sacred hymn to
brotherhood and sisterhood that proclaims all peoples of the earth are
connected by a common humanity. Billy's new choral version of
Beethoven's Ninth was recently performed by the London Philharmonic
Orchestra at the Royal Festival Hall, with the Queen of England in
attendance. Billy wrote about the experience in an article for the
London Mail: "How The Queen Charmed the Pants off Me:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-487796/How-Queen-charmed-pants-Confessions-old-Leftie.html
Billy's story is captured in the documentary that tracks the global
impact of the Ninth. Following The Ninth: In The Footsteps of
Beethoven's NInth Symphony www.followingtheninth.com to be released in
2010.
Joining Billy will be: Dwight Trible (Jazz), Susie Glaze (Bluegrass), Ernest
Troost (Blues), Justin Bischof (Pianist) and the Baker & Tarpaga Dance
Project, Burkina Faso.
***
From: Inti Productions
Subject: FREE Concert - Huayucaltia at the Levitt Pavilion
We hope you can join us for a FREE concert at the Levitt Pavilion in MacArthur Park:
Wednesday, September 2, 2009 7:30 p.m.
2230 West 6th Street
Los Angeles, CA 90057
(213) 384-5701
Watch Huayucaltia in concert:
Bring your lawn chair or a blanket and a picnic. It will be a fun evening for all!
***
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2009/8/26/772482/-Ted-Kennedys-Greatest-Accomplishment:-He-Created-Americans
Ted Kennedy's Greatest Accomplishment: He Created Americans
by Dana Houle
Daily Kos: Aug 26, 2009
Of the many accomplishments of Ted Kennedy, few have had a more profound
effect on America-America as a state, as an economy, a society, and as a
nation-as the first act he ever managed to passage, the Immigration and
Nationality Act of 1965.
The Kennedy family made tremendous sacrifices for our country. Joe Kennedy
died in a secret mission during World War II. John and Robert, of course,
were both assassinated. And just about every other member of the family had
a long history of public service, either in the political sphere or with
causes like Eunice's devotion to the Special Olympics. The Kennedy "clan"
was also famously loving and close. Thus, it was appropriate that a cause
championed by John Kennedy and eventually brought to passage by Teddy put in
to immigration policy a preference for family ties over marketable skills:
The current system of legal immigration dates to 1965. It marked a radical
break with previous policy and has led to profound demographic changes in
America. But that's not how the law was seen when it was passed -- at the
height of the civil rights movement, at a time when ideals of freedom,
democracy and equality had seized the nation. Against this backdrop, the
manner in which the United States decided which foreigners could and could
not enter the country had become an increasing embarrassment.
An Argument Based on Egalitarianism
"The law was just unbelievable in its clarity of racism," says Stephen
Klineberg, a sociologist at Rice University. "It declared that Northern
Europeans are a superior subspecies of the white race. The Nordics were
superior to the Alpines, who in turn were superior to the Mediterraneans,
and all of them were superior to the Jews and the Asians."
By the 1960s, Greeks, Poles, Portuguese and Italians were complaining that
immigration quotas discriminated against them in favor of Western Europeans.
The Democratic Party took up their cause, led by President John F. Kennedy.
In a June 1963 speech to the American Committee on Italian Migration,
Kennedy called the system of quotas in place back then " nearly
intolerable."
It may have started out as a political sop to "ethnic" voters in 1960, but
it's likely that no political act of the last century has so changed America
and put us on the path to eventually becoming a multi-racial nation as that
law from 1965. In 1960, the quota for immigrants (pdf) in to the US from
Asia was 21,604. From the entire continent of Africa, only 1,925 immigrants
were allowed in to the US. In 1960 only 5.4% of Americans were foreign-born;
most were from Europe. But by 2000, 35 years of the new immigration policy,
11.1% of the population was foreign-born; of the foreign-born, only 16% were
from Europe, with about half from Latin America and a quarter from Asia.
My home-the Detroit area-has been transformed in recent decades by massive
immigration from Lebanon and Iraq, Yemen and Albania. I moved a few years
ago to DC, which has become a major destination for immigrants from Ethiopia
and Eritrea and West Africa. I'm now working in the quintessential
Scandinavian state, but whose largest cities now have thriving communities
of Vietnamese and Cambodians and Hmong and Somalis. In major cities like New
York or Los Angeles, or in small towns that become destinations for
immigrants from halfway around the world, the people we live next to, buy
things from, worship with, befriend, marry and with whom we create our own
families, are people who were let in to America because of Senator Ted
Kennedy's first major legislation.
That the bill prioritized family ties, and was passed by an Irish Catholic,
is apt. Catholics were the most despised religious group in early America.
After the enslaved Africans and the persecuted native Americans, no other
major group was so marginalized as the Irish. But today, Irish Catholics are
no longer discriminated against, are no longer outside the mainstream of
American society. The discrimination was fading, but still existed in 1960,
when John Kennedy became our first (and still only) Catholic president. But
thanks in part to the accomplishments and sacrifices of the Kennedy family,
by the time I was growing up in the 1970's, being discriminated against
because you were Irish Catholic-a real experience for my grandparents-was
for me something that existed only in history and family lore.
Some people and groups, when they "make it" and are prosperous and accepted,
don't want to extend opportunities to others, lest, they fear, they lose
their own (newly) privileged status. In the terminology of immigration
policy, they want to "pull up the ladders" and keep everyone else out. But
the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965 was an act of lowering the
ladders and welcoming immigrants from across the globe. When he was arguing
for the act, Kennedy tried to assure critics that it wouldn't significantly
change the ethnic makeup of the country. Obviously he was wrong, and it's
open to interpretation whether he misjudged the effects or concealed his
intents. But in an interview a few years ago, he espoused the best American
principles in supporting the act:
Q: Some have suggested it was a mistake to make family reunification the
main purpose of our immigration law. They say perhaps we should have a
system more like Canada's, which lets people in based largely on their
skills. How do you respond to these criticisms?
KENNEDY: I think our tradition of the Statue of Liberty is to be willing
to accept the unwashed as well as the highly skilled. There are a lot of
people who haven't had opportunities in other places as a result of
dictatorships and totalitarian regimes and discrimination. Are we going to
say we refuse to let any of those individuals come in because we've got
someone who has happened to have a more advantaged situation? I'm not sure
that's what this country is all about.
Most of us Americans descend from people who arrived as among the "great
unwashed masses." As with my family-most of whom originally came from Canada
in the 1920's-many of us have unwashed ancestors who had the luck to arrive
here before the ladders were pulled up just before the Great Depression. But
after 1965, the ladders were lowered, and the "unwashed" were again welcomed
to America.
Much will be made over the next few days about Ted Kennedy's lifelong effort
to extend health care to all Americans. It will be depicted as a great
tragedy that Kennedy didn't live to see his dream enacted. But we should
also celebrate Ted Kennedy's greatest achievement. Ted Kennedy, indeed the
entire Kennedy family, gave a lot to America, but nothing greater than the
1965 immigration bill, because it gave people around the globe-even the
unwashed-the opportunity to become Americans. Ted Kennedy gave us Americans.
Ted Kennedy's Greatest Accomplishment: He Created Americans
by Dana Houle
Daily Kos: Aug 26, 2009
Of the many accomplishments of Ted Kennedy, few have had a more profound
effect on America-America as a state, as an economy, a society, and as a
nation-as the first act he ever managed to passage, the Immigration and
Nationality Act of 1965.
The Kennedy family made tremendous sacrifices for our country. Joe Kennedy
died in a secret mission during World War II. John and Robert, of course,
were both assassinated. And just about every other member of the family had
a long history of public service, either in the political sphere or with
causes like Eunice's devotion to the Special Olympics. The Kennedy "clan"
was also famously loving and close. Thus, it was appropriate that a cause
championed by John Kennedy and eventually brought to passage by Teddy put in
to immigration policy a preference for family ties over marketable skills:
The current system of legal immigration dates to 1965. It marked a radical
break with previous policy and has led to profound demographic changes in
America. But that's not how the law was seen when it was passed -- at the
height of the civil rights movement, at a time when ideals of freedom,
democracy and equality had seized the nation. Against this backdrop, the
manner in which the United States decided which foreigners could and could
not enter the country had become an increasing embarrassment.
An Argument Based on Egalitarianism
"The law was just unbelievable in its clarity of racism," says Stephen
Klineberg, a sociologist at Rice University. "It declared that Northern
Europeans are a superior subspecies of the white race. The Nordics were
superior to the Alpines, who in turn were superior to the Mediterraneans,
and all of them were superior to the Jews and the Asians."
By the 1960s, Greeks, Poles, Portuguese and Italians were complaining that
immigration quotas discriminated against them in favor of Western Europeans.
The Democratic Party took up their cause, led by President John F. Kennedy.
In a June 1963 speech to the American Committee on Italian Migration,
Kennedy called the system of quotas in place back then " nearly
intolerable."
It may have started out as a political sop to "ethnic" voters in 1960, but
it's likely that no political act of the last century has so changed America
and put us on the path to eventually becoming a multi-racial nation as that
law from 1965. In 1960, the quota for immigrants (pdf) in to the US from
Asia was 21,604. From the entire continent of Africa, only 1,925 immigrants
were allowed in to the US. In 1960 only 5.4% of Americans were foreign-born;
most were from Europe. But by 2000, 35 years of the new immigration policy,
11.1% of the population was foreign-born; of the foreign-born, only 16% were
from Europe, with about half from Latin America and a quarter from Asia.
My home-the Detroit area-has been transformed in recent decades by massive
immigration from Lebanon and Iraq, Yemen and Albania. I moved a few years
ago to DC, which has become a major destination for immigrants from Ethiopia
and Eritrea and West Africa. I'm now working in the quintessential
Scandinavian state, but whose largest cities now have thriving communities
of Vietnamese and Cambodians and Hmong and Somalis. In major cities like New
York or Los Angeles, or in small towns that become destinations for
immigrants from halfway around the world, the people we live next to, buy
things from, worship with, befriend, marry and with whom we create our own
families, are people who were let in to America because of Senator Ted
Kennedy's first major legislation.
That the bill prioritized family ties, and was passed by an Irish Catholic,
is apt. Catholics were the most despised religious group in early America.
After the enslaved Africans and the persecuted native Americans, no other
major group was so marginalized as the Irish. But today, Irish Catholics are
no longer discriminated against, are no longer outside the mainstream of
American society. The discrimination was fading, but still existed in 1960,
when John Kennedy became our first (and still only) Catholic president. But
thanks in part to the accomplishments and sacrifices of the Kennedy family,
by the time I was growing up in the 1970's, being discriminated against
because you were Irish Catholic-a real experience for my grandparents-was
for me something that existed only in history and family lore.
Some people and groups, when they "make it" and are prosperous and accepted,
don't want to extend opportunities to others, lest, they fear, they lose
their own (newly) privileged status. In the terminology of immigration
policy, they want to "pull up the ladders" and keep everyone else out. But
the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965 was an act of lowering the
ladders and welcoming immigrants from across the globe. When he was arguing
for the act, Kennedy tried to assure critics that it wouldn't significantly
change the ethnic makeup of the country. Obviously he was wrong, and it's
open to interpretation whether he misjudged the effects or concealed his
intents. But in an interview a few years ago, he espoused the best American
principles in supporting the act:
Q: Some have suggested it was a mistake to make family reunification the
main purpose of our immigration law. They say perhaps we should have a
system more like Canada's, which lets people in based largely on their
skills. How do you respond to these criticisms?
KENNEDY: I think our tradition of the Statue of Liberty is to be willing
to accept the unwashed as well as the highly skilled. There are a lot of
people who haven't had opportunities in other places as a result of
dictatorships and totalitarian regimes and discrimination. Are we going to
say we refuse to let any of those individuals come in because we've got
someone who has happened to have a more advantaged situation? I'm not sure
that's what this country is all about.
Most of us Americans descend from people who arrived as among the "great
unwashed masses." As with my family-most of whom originally came from Canada
in the 1920's-many of us have unwashed ancestors who had the luck to arrive
here before the ladders were pulled up just before the Great Depression. But
after 1965, the ladders were lowered, and the "unwashed" were again welcomed
to America.
Much will be made over the next few days about Ted Kennedy's lifelong effort
to extend health care to all Americans. It will be depicted as a great
tragedy that Kennedy didn't live to see his dream enacted. But we should
also celebrate Ted Kennedy's greatest achievement. Ted Kennedy, indeed the
entire Kennedy family, gave a lot to America, but nothing greater than the
1965 immigration bill, because it gave people around the globe-even the
unwashed-the opportunity to become Americans. Ted Kennedy gave us Americans.
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