On September 27 and 28, Ahmadi Music Group, led by the celebrated Richard Bushman, will treat music aficionados in Kuwait to the genius of Mozart performed by an ensemble of Kuwait-based and international professionals with Harriet Bushman and Manuel Druminski appearing as soloists at the AUK auditorium. The two soloists will perform Mozart Piano Concerto No 12, and Violin Concerto No 5. Both compositions by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756- 1791) are two of his most successful works. Mozart wrote his piano concertos, including No. 12, in 1782 for that winter’s concert season in Vienna, after the success of his opera The Abduction from the Seraglio. Concerto No 12 was one of his first concertos to be published.

Mozart who learned to play the violin at an early age from his father,wrote his Violin Concerto No 5 during his apprentice period in 1775. Steve Lacoste, the renowned composer, makes the following observation regarding Violin Concerto No. 5, “Especially in his Violin Concerto No. 5 in A, K. 219, Mozart demonstrates great imagination in his experimentation with fluctuating tempos and diverse meters within single movements. Such freedom in his handling of material expresses not only originality of form but also Mozart’s knowledge and command of both the Italian and French styles, a demonstration of his cosmopolitanism at the age of 19!”

Composer
On Sep 27 and 28, Kuwait will be treated to a special performance by Harriet Bushman, an award-winning composer of instrumental and vocal music for both theatre and the concert stage. She will play Mozart’s Piano Concerto 12 accompanied by the Ahmadi Music Group. Harriet Bushman trained at the Royal Academy of Music in London, Florence, and Lausanne. She relocated to Saudi Arabia and, as a solo pianist and chamber musician, toured the Middle East. After returning to England, Harriet scored documentary music for the BBC and Channel 4 Television.

Harriet and her husband Richard have, through their work with the Ahmadi Music Group and through their independent work, left an indelible mark on Kuwait’s cultural scene. Both have collaborated with local musicians, written songs and incidental music for local theatre productions in English and successfully navigated the difficult terrain of performing arts in Kuwait with relative ease. “This piano concerto number 12 K414 is deeply special to me,” notes Harriet “It seems it was written during a happy period of Mozart’s tragically short life and absolutely embodies the spirit of his musical genius.

This music is playful and gentle although at times stormy, turbulent, challenging and exciting. As in all great music, it depicts human emotion on many different levels, making you feel that the music is talking directly, and only, to your own heart.” In 1782, while writing about his piano concertos to his father, a gifted musician himself, Mozart wrote, “These concertos are a happy medium between too heavy and too light. They are very brilliant, pleasing to the ear, and natural, without being insipid. There are parts here and there from which connoisseurs alone can derive satisfaction, but these passages are written in such a way that the less learned cannot fail to be pleased, albeit without knowing why.”

According to Harriet, Mozart was an improviser of unparalleled brilliance, and even though most of the music the soloist is playing is written down, there are moments when flight and fancy take over, and the soloist can ‘do their own thing’. “I love this liberty that Mozart builds into his concertos - that as the soloist, one can feel illuminated by the spirit of this great man of almost 300 years ago and play from one’s own heart,” she notes.

Experience
The upcoming recital on Sept 27 -28 will also feature a violin maestro. Manuel Druminski is a world-renowned German violinist and composer with years of experience and a Doctorate in Musical Arts from the Academy for Music and Theatre in Munich, Germany. In 2009, he successfully completed his studies and became 1st concertmaster of the Freiburg Philharmonic Orchestra and Munich Philharmonic Orchestra.

Before the pandemic, Manuel Druminski taught at the Royal Training Centre in Kuwait at the Sheikh Jaber Al Ahmad Cultural Centre. In 2022, he also taught as a professor at the University of the Musical Arts Kuwait. In pre-pandemic years, Manuel Druminski has played at Dar Al Athar Al Islamiyyah, and with the Ahmadi Music Group. Druminski and Harriet Bushman played as a duo many times during his stay in Kuwait. Together, they performed the great compositions of Mozart, Beethoven, Brahms, Cesar Franck, Staint Saens and more.

“I first heard Mr Druminski play the Bach Chaconne at a Dar Al Athar Al Islamiyyah concert and knew I was in the presence of an unusually fine musician as well as a consummate violinist, “Harriet recalls. “The day he left Kuwait was a tragic one not only for me but for the whole musical scene.” In December 2022, Druminski joined the Mozarteum Orchestra Salzburg, an Austrian ensemble founded with the help of Mozart’s sons and widows in 1841, as its first concertmaster. Manuel Druminski appears both as a soloist and in chamber music formations. He appears regularly at well-known festivals like the Schleswig-Holstein Music Festival, Rheingau Festival, ZMF (Zeltmusik Festival Freiburg), Lucerne Festival and many others.

Orchestra
When asked about his favourite violin composition, Druminski replies, “The Chaconne by JS Bach. It is not a big flashy piece like some others, which I also like, but it requires incredible accuracy and subtlety, which take complete control, so that is why it is exciting for me.” Most musicians have a special routine they follow before each performance, Druminski is no exception. “I try to go inside myself and to focus and reach a level of calm, keep my focus turned on,”he says. “I play the violin very slowly, meditation-style, then go on stage and perform. Even loud, explosive music has to be played from a calm state.” Since last year, Manuel D Druminski has been concertmaster to Mozarteum Orchestra Salzburg, one of the finest orchestras with roots very close to the little master himself.

“Playing for the Mozarteum is a very special experience,” he says. “It is a very high-quality orchestra, some days we play better or worse, just like any other orchestra, but we try to make every performance into the greatest audience experience we can, and for me, to see the effort that everyone makes is very exciting, and it is a privilege to be a member of this orchestra.” On Sept 27/28 at the American University Kuwait, Harriet Bushman, Manuel Druminski and the Ahmadi Music Group will once again share the platform when the audience will be spirited back to the 18th century when life was not just powdered wigs and candlelit silks but deeply dramatic in the disparity of human existence.“ Mozart experienced it all,” says Harriet, “ the fine manners at royal courts versus bloody brawls in bars, or travelling around Europe as a celebrated musician versus scribbling in a garret fending off fear-filled grinding poverty. It all appears in his music, and these two concertos, accompanied by the Ahmadi Music Group orchestra directed by Richard Bushman, will bring it all to life.”

By Chaitali B. Roy Special to the Arab Times