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
Kerry Candaele: 310 430 1954 for group discounts (six or more tickets)
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.
We're asking you as a friend of both music and economic justice to
support the U.S. premiere of the Beethoven Billy Bragg Ninth. The
event will include Billy's new Fourth Movement of Beethoven's Ninth
Symphony performed by the Asia America Youth Orchestra under the baton
and music direction of David Benoit. Billy will be on hand to perform
and lead the audience in a singalong of his English version of the
choral "Ode to Joy." In keeping with the Ninth's spirit of
international connection, there will be several other groups from
across the Los Angeles and Santa Monica ethnic communities doing their
versions of different parts of the Ninth.
Joining Billy will be: Dwight Trible (Jazz), Susie Glaze (Bluegrass), Ernest
Troost (Blues), Justin Bischof (Pianist) and the Baker & Tarpaga Dance
Project, Burkina Faso.
Cosponsors include: KPFK, Brave New Films, Code Pink, The Austrian and
German Consulates of Los Angeles; The California Nurses Association (CNA);
LA Alliance for a New Economy; The Horizon Institute ; Los Angeles Council
Member Eric Garcetti; Santa Monica Council Member Richard
Bloom.
Tickets are $55, $75, and $100 at www.beethovenbragg.com or call
310 430 1954 for group discounts of six tickets or more.
The Beethoven Billy Bragg Ninth at the Broad Stage, Saturday August
29th, 7-9:30pm
1310 11th St. Santa Monica, CA 90401
Directions to the Eli and Edythe Broad Stage, Santa Monica College
Performing Arts Center
FROM DOWNTOWN LOS ANGELES
Get on the 10 west to the Lincoln Blvd exit NORTH (right). Turn right
on Santa Monica Blvd. The theatre is on Santa Monica Blvd between 10th
and 11th. The entrance to the parking lot is on Santa Monica Blvd.
FROM SAN FERNANDO VALLEY
Get on the 405 south to the 10 west to the Lincoln Blvd exit NORTH
(right). Turn right on Santa Monica Blvd. The theatre is on Santa
Monica Blvd between 10th and 11th street. The entrance to the parking
lot is on Santa Monica Blvd.
FROM LOS ANGELES AIRPORT
Get on the 405 north to the 10 west to the Lincoln Blvd exit NORTH
(right). Turn right on Santa Monica Blvd. The theatre is on Santa
Monica Blvd between 10th and 11th. The entrance to the parking lot is
on Santa Monica Blvd.
***
From: Sid Shniad
Reality Is Its Own Caricature for US in Afghanistan and Pakistan
by William Pfaff, August 21, 2009
(c) 2009 Tribune Media Services, Inc.
PARIS — The problem with U.S.-sponsored elections in Asia and elsewhere in
the non-Western world, as in Afghanistan Aug. 20, is that they are sponsored
by the United States primarily to legitimize its own presence in the
country.
A poll sponsored by the Qatar-based satellite broadcaster Al Jazeera
recently asked respondents in Pakistan to identify what they considered the
greatest threat to Pakistan today. Eleven percent said it was the Taliban
militants; 18 percent said it was the traditional enemy, India; and 59
percent said that the United States was the biggest threat to Pakistan.
A New York Times report published Aug. 20 described the efforts of American
officials, including Richard Holbrooke, to convince Pakistani officials,
journalists and other notables that the U.S. is anxious to build bridges
between Pakistan and the United States, and that the Obama administration
represents a great change from the Bush administration.
Holbrooke is President Obama's special representative to Pakistan and
Afghanistan. He told an audience in Karachi that the U.S. under President
Obama wants to see an improvement in the lives of Pakistanis, and more
business opportunities for them as well.
The new administration's under secretary of state for public diplomacy and
public affairs, Judith A. McHale, met a group of Pakistani journalists,
including Ansar Abbasi, an important commentator critical of U.S. policy.
She spoke warmly of U.S.-Pakistani relations, and Abbasi politely listened,
thanking her for coming. He then, according to McHale afterward, said, "You
should know that we hate all Americans. From the bottom of our souls, we
hate you."
Under Secretary McHale also reported that Abbasi went on to explain that
Americans "are no longer human beings because (their) goal was to eliminate
other humans." He said that "thousands of innocent people had been killed
because (Americans) are trying to find Osama bin Laden."
To quote the Times' characterization of McHale's remarks afterward, "She
said that even though she knew that she did not sway Mr. Abbasi, it was good
to hear what he thought because she wanted to try to understand the source
of much of the anti-Americanism in Pakistan."
Twelve days earlier, in Washington, Holbrooke had held another press
conference, accompanied by many from his team in Pakistan. The purpose was
to explain to the American television audience that the mission in
Afghanistan is to kill or capture drug traffickers, help farmers grow food
instead of poppies, build a public health system, build "civil society"
there, and in general rebuild the country.
However, ex-NATO commander Gen. Wesley Clark, another adviser to President
Obama, shortly afterward cited the lessons of Vietnam, and said he had
counseled the president to emphasize the pursuit of al-Qaeda, and not
confuse Americans about being in Afghanistan to create a democracy. "Learn
the lessons of the past; don't repeat them."
Building a new democratic state in Afghanistan might be thought a large
ambition, even if the famously energetic Holbrooke and President Obama had
the 20 to 30 years or more necessary to get started on such an undertaking,
and if the Afghans would put up with the Americans trying to do it.
Ambassador Holbrooke expressed the ambition to add a spiritual dimension to
his efforts in the region. He said the religiously motivated enemies of the
American presence in Asia "present themselves as false messengers of a
prophet, which is what they do. And we need to combat it." (Surely he has
his theology badly confused?)
The New York Times report on this press conference was headlined "U.S. Turns
to Radio Stations and Cell Phones to Counter Taliban's Propaganda,"
emphasizing what would seem to be a star project of Holbrooke's
"counterinsurgency expert," Vikram Singh. It is to build a communications
and media system that can reach into every Afghan village to deliver an
anti-Taliban message.
As Afghanistan is a very large and mountainous country, and one of the
poorest in the world, one would like to know his plan for regularly
delivering replacement batteries necessary to millions of peasants to power
the new cell phones they have been given, as well as supplying guards (from
Blackwater?) to protect from the Taliban the thousands or tens of thousands
of satellite receivers or relay stations necessary to deliver the Voice of
America into Afghan homes.
Suppose the Taliban tap into the network and deliver their own messages? A
learned friend of mine quoted Herbert Marcuse on this plan: "Reality is its
own caricature."
(c) 2009 Tribune Media Services, Inc.
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