Europa – A prayerKarine Deshayes & Ensemble Contraste

This recital draws on the works of composers who were inspired by traditional music from Central Europe. Both the klezmer rooted in liturgical hymns and the authentic folk melodies are imbued with warm vitality and exuberance, but also with a sense of melancholy oppression, the mark left by a long history of rejection and exile.   

Together with the musicians of Ensemble Contraste, Karine Deshayes crosses songs such as Maurice Ravel’s Kaddish, Kurt Weill’s Youkali and Antonín Dvořák’s Gypsy Songs with instrumental dances by Béla Bartók, chamber music by Gustav Mahler and John Williams’ poignant soundtrack for Schindler’s List. Under the title Europa – A Prayer, theirs is an outspoken plea for diversity as a source of richness and for art as a unifying experience.