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Brazilian conductor to lead orchestra in Beirut
São Paulo – The Brazilian maestro Ligia Amadio is conducting the Lebanese Philharmonic Orchestra next Friday (15th) in Beirut, the capital of Lebanon. The Brazilian artist arrived in the Arab country last weekend to rehearse with the local musicians. The performance will take place at 8:30 pm at the St Joseph Jesuit Church, free of charge.
The repertoire will include Bachianas No. 7, by the Brazilian composer and maestro Heitor Villa-Lobos, and Symphony No. 3 in F major, op.90, by Germany’s Johannes Brahms. “We will play Villa-Lobos to bring the best of Brazilian music to Lebanese audiences,” Amadio told by email. “With Brahms’s third symphony, we will perform one of the most beloved pieces of universal music, a composition that poses technical and expressive challenges to any orchestra and any conductor,” she said.
On justifying her choice of Villa Lobos, the artist noted that the Brazilian embassy in Lebanon, which is committed to the concert and collaborating actively for it to take place, works to spread Brazilian music in the Arab country. This is why a piece by a Brazilian composer is in the repertoire. The Friday performance is sponsored by the embassy in collaboration with the Lebanese Philharmonic Orchestra.
Amadio will rehearse with the group the entire week through Friday. She explains that the work process of conductor-orchestra interaction for a concert is an international one. “Adaptation is mutual, always,” she says. The maestro asserts that the musicians in the Lebanese Philharmonic Orchestra are world-class and that she anticipates a “wonderful” concert.
Amadio conducted the Lebanese orchestra in 2012 during the 19th Al Bustan International Festival of Music and of the Arts, in Beirut, at the request of the event’s president Myrna Bustani. The invitation for this year’s performance came from the current artistic director and principal conductor of the Lebanese Philharmonic Orchestra, maestro Harout Fazlian, who attended the 2012 concert.
Due to having worked with the orchestra before, Amadio says she has special feelings for it. Founded in 1988, it is the country’s foremost ensemble, maintained by the government, and connected with the Ministry of Culture and the Lebanese National Higher Conservatory of Music.
Brazilian conductor
Amadio is regarded by critics as one of Brazil’s leading maestros, for her high artistic standards, charisma, and corporal and verbal expressivity. She holds a degree in Industrial Engineering and studied at the Music Conservatory of the University of São Paulo (USP), where she ultimately opted for the orchestra.
The first woman ever to win the orchestral direction contest in Tokyo, Ligia Amadio was also the principal conductor of the USP Symphonic Orchestra, the Mendoza Philharmonic Orchestra, in Argentina, and the Bogota Symphonic Orchestra, in Colombia, among others. She has also served as guest director with various orchestras around the world.
Amadio says she admires and respects Arab culture, and her relationship with the region is like all other Brazilians’, one of integration in habits, culture and friendship. “Since my earliest childhood, I had countless friends of Arab descent, more specifically Lebanese. São Paulo’s current mayor Fernando Haddad is an admired friend of mine, as is the great Brazilian diplomat José Maurício Bustani,” she says.
Source: www2.anba.com.br