Overview
WQXR presents Beginner’s Ear, one hour of lunchtime bliss with guided meditation and a live performance by world-class musicians every Friday from January 17 through March 6. Each meditation will feature music from a different artist, to be announced.
Take a blissful dive into the lucid, intimate world of the classical guitar in this special one-hour event combining guided meditation and live music. In the masterful hands of Artyom Dervoed, the sound of the guitar takes on myriad colors and emotional inflections.
Join in a simple mindfulness practice to clear mental static. Then allow the sounds of Artyom’s guitar transport you on a journey including works by Scarlatti, Leo Brouwer and Roland Dyens. A short conversation on aspects of mindful listening will conclude the event.
Beginner’s Ear was created by New York Times contributing critic Corinna da Fonseca-Wollheim as a way to dissolve the mental static that so often gets in the way of a clear connection to a musical performance. Each 60-minute session begins with a mindfulness teacher leading participants in a 15-minute guided meditation. Out of the resulting deep stillness, a 30-minute musical performance emerges, unfolds in the space, and recedes back into the rich calm. The event wraps up with a short conversation, moderated by Corinna, about aspects of mindful listening.
Corinna da Fonseca-Wollheim is a writer, music critic and the founder of Beginner’s Ear. Thomas Droge is an author, teacher, and Chinese medicine practitioner with deep roots in the Daoist tradition, as well as the meditation consultant for Beginner’s Ear.
Dubbed the “Tsar of the guitar” by the French magazine Universe Guitar, Artyom Dervoed is among the eminent champions of the classical guitar. He has won 16 first prizes at international competitions and is a regular guest on the world’s most prestigious stages, including the Berliner Philharmonie, Carnegie Hall, and Tchaikovsky Hall. He is equally compelling in the standard orchestral, chamber and solo guitar literature and in new music, where he inspires, commissions and performs works by from leading composers.
“One of the most outstanding classical guitarists I’ve heard so far…[who] is taking the classical guitar to a new level. To watch Mr. Dervoed’s stunning virtuosity combined with his deep musical insight…is more than fascinating.” (Augustin Wiedemann)
