|
......................................
| |
Blog
<<<
Nageeb Gardizi - from
Afghanistan to Germany
August 26,2007 - Nageeb Gardizi is the artistic force
behind the "Neumarkt" Concerts in Cologne, Germany, a classical music
concert series that is now in its second year. In addition to that he gives a
lot of concerts elsewhere, also so-called "house-concerts" and church
concerts, which are very popular in our area. He also teaches classical piano in
a private music school in the town of Hürth, next to Cologne.
Nageeb Gardizi is also the artistic soul behind the "ommaterra
classical music" venture and he will be responsible for our publishing
programme with many young and talented performers for video production mostly,
but also audio recordings to be published in mp3-format. In many classical music
videos to come, Nageeb Gardizi, the concert pianist, he himself naturally
gives his best performance on the grand piano.
For our online presentation we use YouTube, which is an
excellent platform to reach a large public.
Nageeb Gardizi was born in Gardez, Afghanistan in 1978. He is
number two of the children with an older and a younger sister. Although neither
his father, a U.S.-educated Afghan career diplomat or his
mother, a dental doctor, had any musical background, Nageeb started his
first steps into the world of music at the age of 3. His interest for musical
events and sounds arose as he listened to the tunes of Afghan folk-music and
tried to imitate these sounds on the "Harmonia", a main instrument in
Afghan classical music of Indian origin. It is comparable to a European
"Harmonium". However, the sounds are produced by the left hand only,
instead of pedal use. The right hand plays on a low-ranged keyboard, which is
the same as on the piano. Although he didn't have the chance to take lessons
until many years later, he was already at this early age fascinated by music.
The invasion of Soviet troops in 1979 forced the family to leave
Afghanistan. They first went to India in 1981, and lived there for about 6
months. The father went direct to Germany and in 1982, the whole family
got together there and settled in Cologne.
Nageeb started his first piano lessons in Cologne, and soon his
love for the piano became clear. At the age of 6 he entered the
"Humboldt" musical school in Cologne and changed to a private teacher
two years later. He now learned the basics of the European classical music
notation system. It is fair to say that his urge to become a classical pianist
was already established at this early stage.
You can get additional personal information about the
Afghan-German pianist Nageeb Gardizi at his homepage http://www.nageeb-gardizi.com.
You can also see his work at the "Neumarkt" concerts at http://www.neumarktkonzerte.de.
For an international public we have to say, sorry, most of the texts on those
pages are only in German language.
Our "Neumarkt" Concerts
May 27th, 2007 (first published in
http://musicspecials.terapad.com/)
Greetings from Cologne. My name is Harald Omma. Using ommaterra.com for my
personal blog on classical music, I am starting this Weblog featuring our
classical concert activities in Germany.
It all commenced with an invitation from Dinah, a soprano from Dusseldorf, to a
classical concert in Cologne in the summer of 2006. It was a wonderful
concert. Dinah and one more soprano were singing German "Lieder," on
grand piano accompanied by Nageeb, a 29-year old Afghan who grew up in Cologne,
and also got most of his musical education here. The music hall adjacent to St.
Aposteln church, a catholic landmark in the center of the city, has about 150
seats. This concert had about 12 people in the audience. A pity, but rather
normal for this kind of classical adventures, I was told. Not very encouraging
for the artists, of course, to see so many empty seats, they still did their
best to make it an unforgettable evening for the few of us who attended.
Also, there were no journalists from local media or photographers there. But who
wants to read concert reviews or critics about unknown artists who attract an
audience of 12 people anyhow? A magic number - on the back wall behind the grand
piano are the paintings of Jesus Christ with his 12 apostles. This
concert, doomed to obscurity and oblivision, is the fate of most concerts in St.
Aposteln Music Hall - despite its prime location right in the center of the city,
in an area called Neumarkt. I was later told that there are about 120 concerts
a year only in this church, including the music hall, with an average
audience of about 15 to 20 people per concert. But there are hundreds of
churches in Cologne and a great number of them have concerts. I have no idea how
many concerts there could be in total, but the number must be quite staggering.
I would like to call all these concerts the "off-mainstream" classical
concerts, in contrast to the mainstream concerts in the city under the
leadership of the well-established Cologne Philharmonic Orchestra.
However, any concert with a paying audience of only 12 people is a
disaster for any artist - both financially and emotionally. This
evening turned out to become my challenge. Since then I am involved in promoting,
supporting and sponsoring our "off-mainstream" classical
concerts team of brilliant, professional musicians in the St. Aposteln Music
Hall. I am proud of it, and I am very proud to know these talented and
well-educated, young professionals. It is an honor to work with them and I am
very fortunate to have the good support of my wife in this. In 2006 we had four
concerts in the fall. In 2007 we had two concerts so far, and we have three more
concerts planned for the fall. We call the concerts
"Neumarkt-Konzerte" after the area of St. Aposteln Music Hall, with
the postal address of Neumarkt 30. Nageeb Gardizi, the young champion on the
grand piano, has taken upon himself the role of an artistic director and in
cooperation with the other artists and me, he sets up the programs for the
concerts. Our last concert was on the theme "Nordic Spring" with
Grieg, Sibelius and others - a special wish of mine, since I am a
Norwegian.
Cologne, a city of about one million inhabitants in North Rhine-Westphalia, is
the fourth biggest city of Germany after Berlin, Hamburg and Munich. Such a big
city, such great chamber concerts, a location so easy to reach by public or
private transportation, and then such a small audience! That puzzled and stunned
me right away. How could it be that so few people found their way to this music
hall at this particular evening? Were there simply too many concerts in the city
at the same time? Are people in general not enough interested in classical music?
Are they avoiding unknown artists? Or is it that people cannot get away from
their TVs at home? I had no answers, and it made me curious. Because in every
problem I think there is a hidden opportunity.
Now I am ready for the next step. I am looking to find people who can help us to
turn the "Neumarkt-Konzerte" into a lasting venture. We need to expand
our audience, today counting about 100 people in our total pool. Our first
"Neumarkt" concert with Nageeb alone on the grand piano, playing
Scriabin, the mystic Russian composer, brought us an audience of 8 people
- a catastrophic no-show. But two concerts later, our best showing was
108. Our last concert on May 19th had an audience of 55 people. From a very
modest start the "Neumarkt-Konzerte" is now a business on a shoestring.
After every concert we still meet at the same Italian restaurant. It is always a
great evening together with the artists. I am now inviting creative people to
help us to build an alternative "off-mainstream" classical music
society or club in Cologne to support and promote some very fine and young
international musicians living here.
We have done one more thing: From the little money that we take in by ticket
sales, the St. Aposteln congregation gets 10 per cent off the top for their soup
kitchen for the homeless.
As a free service, I am also doing the following websites for our artists:
www.neumarktkonzerte.de
www.nageeb-gardizi.com
www.anna-zlotovskaia.com
www.tatiana-kozlova.com
www.sergei-kudriaschow.com
www.noemi-schroeder.com
Contact
Impressum
| |
.............................................
|
