Yo-Yo Ma: Inspired by Bach – Suite 3: Falling Down Stairs

Inspired by Bach presents cellist Yo-Yo Ma performing the six Suites for Unaccompanied Cello by J.S. Bach in collaboration with artists from different disciplines, in a set of six films. Follows an intense year-long collaboration between Yo-Yo Ma and choreographer Mark Morris, which culminates in a spectacular performance, conceived especially for film, of J. S. Bach’s Suite No. 3 for Unaccompanied Cello as interpreted by Yo-Yo Ma and the 14-member Mark Morris Dance Group. The film shows the intimacy, soul-searching and humor involved in the creative process, as Yo-Yo and Mark struggle to create a completely new work that can live up to the title “Inspired by Bach.”

Yo-Yo Ma: Inspired by Bach – Suite 4: Sarabande

Inspired by Bach presents cellist Yo-Yo Ma performing the six Suites for Unaccompanied Cello by J.S. Bach in collaboration with artists from different disciplines, in a set of six films. A missed limousine; a masterclass; a doctor’s office; a recital. Inspired by the moods and emotions of the Fourth Suite, SARABANDE is a dramatic film directed by feature film director Atom Egoyan and starring Yo-Yo Ma, Lori Singer, Arsinée Khanjian and Don McKellar. The film weaves together numerous stories in a series of coincidences intimating themes of generosity and exchange. Beginning with Ma’s confused and humorous arrival at Toronto International Airport, his taxi ride downtown and the goings-on at a doctor’s office, this enigmatic drama culminates in a masterclass conducted by Yo-Yo Ma and attended by the doctor (played by Lori Singer). Ultimately, the film examines the effect of music on the everyday lives of the characters and specifically the value of music to healing, especially in relation to the Bach Cello Suites.

Yo-Yo Ma: Inspired by Bach – Suite 5: Struggle For Hope

Inspired by Bach presents cellist Yo-Yo Ma performing the six Suites for Unaccompanied Cello by J.S. Bach in collaboration with artists from different disciplines, in a set of six films. Two celebrated artists – cellist Yo-Yo Ma and Kabuki actor Tamasaburo Bando – combine talents to create an emotionally charged dance performance to J.S. Bach’s Fifth Suite for Unaccompanied Cello that draws its very inspiration from two very distinct worlds. Struggle For Hope follows Yo-Yo and Tamasaburo on this seemingly impossible collaboration. As Eastern mysticism meets Western rigour, the two rehearse and discuss the ultimate goal: a performance that enhances both traditions and transcends the cultural boundaries that naturally exist between them.

Yo-Yo Ma: Inspired by Bach – Suite 6: Six Gestures

Inspired by Bach presents cellist Yo-Yo Ma performing the six Suites for Unaccompanied Cello by J.S. Bach in collaboration with artists from different disciplines, in a set of six films. When Yo-Yo Ma decided to re-record J.S. Bach’s Suites for Unaccompanied Cello, he approached world champion skaters Jayne Torvill and Christopher Dean to join him in interpreting the Sixth Suite. Combining beautiful images of Yo-Yo Ma’s performance with magnificent sequences of Torvill and Dean and J.S. Bach’s first person narrative, SIX GESTURES investigates J.S. Bach’s personal and professional history while linking his life and music to our modern world

W.A. Mozart: Concerto For Two Pianos

Mozart’s Concert for two pianos belongs to the most artful and ambitious works of this genre. Pierre-Laurent Aimard and Tamara Stefanovich, these days two of the leading interpreter’s of Mozart’s Music, performed this work at the “Mozartwoche 2008” in Salzburg. Jonathan Nott conducts the Camerata Salzburg. Also on the programme: Mozart’s Serenade D Major KV 185 „Antretter-Serenade“. At the age of 16, Pierre-Laurent Aimard was awarded the chamber music prize of the Paris Conservatoire. In the same year he won the first prize at the international Olivier Messiaen Competition. In 1977, at the invitation of Pierre Boulez, he became a founding member of the Ensemble InterContemporain. In addition to his work with contemporary music, Aimard has recorded the five Beethoven piano concertos with Nikolaus Harnoncourt and the Chamber Orchestra of Europe, at the invitation of Harnoncourt. Tamara Stefanovich enjoys a busy performance schedule which includes recitals, music festivals and concert performances with some of the world’s leading symphonic and chamber orchestras.

Till Brönner plays AVO Session

The German jazz musician Till Brönner has a unique jazz approach influenced not only by bebop and fusion jazz, but also by modern pop music, movie soundtracks, country music and even German pop songs. His trumpet playing is primarily inspired by the listening experiences of Freddie Hubbard and Chet Baker. In March 2007 he produced ‘The jazz album’ for legendary classical singer Thomas Quasthoff, featuring pianist Alan Broadbent and drummer Peter Erskine. His album RIO, with featured guest vocalists Vanessa da Mata, Kurt Elling, Melody Gardot, Annie Lennox, Aimee Mann, Sergio Mendes, Milton Nascimento & Luciana Souza was produced by Grammy winner Larry Klein in Rio de Janeiro and Los Angeles and is featured at this concert at Avo Session Basel.

Puccini – The dark side of the moon

The Italian composer, Giacomo Puccini is reputed to have once described himself as „a passionate hunter of water birds, texts and women.“ It was an ironic description of the problems which are said to have accompanied him throughout his life. He was indeed a passionate, yet terrible, hunter. With every opera he wrote, he wore out numerous librettists in the search for the perfect text, because unlike Mozart, he couldn’t write a single note before the „script“ for a new piece of work was just as he wanted it – and for as long as he lived, he was almost manic in his hunt for and collection of beautiful women…The film by Andreas Morell looks at Giacomo Puccini’s life from the point of view of his psychological manic preoccupation with one subject: women. He makes connections between the women in Puccini’s life and those in his operas, looking as he goes, at what made Puccini tick. Starting with a characteristic situation in Vienna in 1923 – one year before the composer’s death – the film offers an insight into Puccini and reflects a repetitive pattern which spanned almost three decades of his life. As he summarised for his own credo: “I cannot compose without love in my life!”

Music, War and Revolution – Music in the Time of the Great War

When the First World War broke out in 1914, the musical world did not remain unaffected. Artists inevitably became involved, either as soldiers at the front or as composers of patriotic music or musical memorials to a lost world. The three-part documentary series investigates the (un)known, overt and hidden connections between music, war and revolution. The first part focuses on the enthusiasm for the war in the musical world: when musicians and composers became fervent patriots and soldiers. How did the composers and musicians such as Alban Berg, Arnold Schoenberg, Maurice Ravel and Béla Bartók handle these times of war? How did their experiences at the battlefront affect their composing? What do the compositions reveal of this era and its spirit, believes and artistic changes of this age? The documentary combines important historical locations in the lives of the composers and musicians: such as the original battlefront of Verdun with the Voie Sacrée and the old Vienna with the Wiener Musikverein.