Evento

Following The Ninth: Beethoven Film Screening Long Beach

Bill Moyers called Following The Ninth "beautiful and powerful". The Village Voice found it "A majestic documentary Each anecdote builds upon the next to create that rarest of films: a documentary as ineffable and transformative as it sets out to be."

Written in 1824, near the end of Beethoven's life, the Ninth Symphony was composed by a man with little to be thankful for. Sick, alienated from almost everyone, and completely deaf, Beethoven had never managed to find the love he desired, but he managed to create an anthem of joy that embraces the transcendence of beauty over suffering.

Celebrated to this day for its ability to heal, repair, and bring people together across great divides, Beethoven's Ninth Symphony has become an anthem of liberation and hope that has inspired many around the world:

At Tiananmen Square in 1989, students played the Ninth over loudspeakers as the army came in to crush their struggle for freedom.

In Chile, women living under the Pinochet dictatorship sang the Ninth at torture prisons, where men inside took hope when they heard their voices.

As the Berlin Wall came down in December 1989, it collapsed to the sound of Leonard Bernstein conducting Beethovens Ninth as an Ode To Freedom.

In Japan each December, the Ninth is performed hundreds of times, often with 10,000 people in the chorus. Following the Ninth gives us insight into the heightened importance of this massive communal Ninth, known as Daiku, in the aftermath of the earthquake and tsunami of 2011.

Directed and produced by Kerry Candaele, whose other films include Wal-Mart: The High Cost of Low Price, and the women's baseball documentary A League of Their Own, Following the Ninth is a moving ode to hope, freedom, and the power of art.

The Director, Kerry Candaele, will be at the screening to introduce the film and answer questions after the event.

The Long Beach Symphony is a partner in this screening:

Long Beach Symphony celebrates the end of their glorious season with enduring music of pomp and unity. The season finale performance includes Handels Royal Fireworks Music and Beethovens monumental 9th Symphony that incorporates 4 vocalists and a chorus in the well-known Ode to Joy.http://longbeachsymphony.org/concerts-events/beethovens-ninth/

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