THE BEAUTY WILL SAVE THE WORLD

Simone Menezes

Ensemble K

Commissioned by Cartier

for the Women’s Pavilion

at the Dubai World Expo

“The famous phrase by Dostoevsky, ‘Beauty will save the world,’ does not refer to the current concept of beauty, but to the ancient Greek notion, where the beautiful encompassed not only aesthetics, but also truth, justice, and integrity. A set of elements together constituted the beautiful. The concert celebrates women and music through different expressions of the beautiful in classical music.”

This project was commissioned for the closing of the Women's Pavilion at the Dubai World Expo and was presented at the Dubai Opera. The famous phrase by Dostoevsky served as the inspiration for creating this concert. The project was designed for a diverse, non-melomaniac audience, and our artistic intention was to express the beauty described in the Greek concept (beauty being something that goes beyond the visual, toward something that is true, good, and profound). In this context, our goal was to create several tableaux of beauty.

The main tableaux were : Tchaikovsky’s Serenata for Strings, beauty expressed through romanticism and the emotion individual expressed. Debussy’s Danse Sacrée et Danse Profane, the sensory and sensual beauty of French music. Johannes Brahms’ Vier Gesänge, Op. 17 for Female Choir, Horns, and Harp, the concert concludes with this work of celestial and transcendent beauty, where the predominant voice is a women’s choir. The concert had a live transmission for mezzo.tv.

Repertoire for harp, 2 horns strings (8.8.6.4.2) and female choir : Tchaikovsky – Serenade for Strings Debussy – Danse Sacrée et Danse Profane Brahms – Vier Gesänge, Op. 17 for Women’s Choir, Horns, and Harp

- Simone Menezes