Einstein’s Universe Celebrates His Two Loves

Einstein’s Universe Celebrates His Two Loves: Music and Science in 10 Centre Tour

“If I were not a physicist, I would probably be a musician. I often think in music. I live my daydreams in music. I see my life in terms of music” – Albert Einstein

Albert Einstein was not only the greatest physicist of the 20th century, he was also a keen and talented musician and carried his violin ‘Lina’ with him everywhere he went.
.
Science and music are woven together in Einstein’s Universe – a special talk and chamber music concert series celebrating Einstein’s genius as a scientist and his love of music, and touring to 10 New Zealand centres in July.

This special collaboration between Chamber Music New Zealand and the Royal Society of New Zealand features a talk interwoven with imagery and live music by Oxford University’s Professor Brian Foster and British violinist Jack Liebeck, followed by a concert with Jack and friends including well-known New Zealand pianist Stephen de Pledge.

Einstein’s Universe begins its tour in Hamilton on Monday 15 July, before heading to Napier, Palmerston North, Auckland, Wellington, New Plymouth, Nelson, Christchurch, Dunedin and Invercargill.

Chamber Music New Zealand chief executive Euan Murdoch says it’s well known that Einstein “adored” chamber music. “He took part in regular musical evenings at Princeton and played with many of the famous musicians of his day including Fritz Kreisler, Isaac Stern and Pablo Casals.
“Students would come for physics lessons and get dragged into playing chamber music.”

The double programme begins with an illustrated talk by Professor Brian Foster, Professor of Physics at Oxford and Hamburg universities, accompanied by violinist Jack Liebeck. Brian and Jack have been presenting the Einstein’s Universe programmes worldwide for the past eight years.

The illustrated talk reveals Einstein’s life, his love of music and how his ideas have shaped our concepts of space, time and the evolution of the Universe.

Royal Society of New Zealand chief executive Di McCarthy says Einstein has had a profound impact on modern day physics.

“Brian will explain the progression from Einstein’s Theory of Relativity to the Large Hadron Collider and the Higgs boson recently discovered at CERN.”

At several points in the talk, Jack will use his violin to illustrate some of the ideas discussed by Brian and it will conclude with Brian and Jack joining forces for a duet for two violins by Mozart, which pays tribute to Einstein’s lifelong love of chamber music.

After a dinner break, the second part of the programme is a concert and Jack, who was named ‘Young British Performer of the Year’ in 2011, is joined by his wife, violinist Victoria Sayles, and performs with pianist Stephen De Pledge and New Zealand Symphony Orchestra principal viola Julia Joyce and NZSO principal cello Andrew Joyce. For three concerts – in Hamilton, Napier and Palmerston North – Lara Hall will play viola and James Tennant will play cello.

Two concert programmes will be performed on the tour and features works which Einstein loved and played including a selection of Martinů’s Madrigal Stanzas which were written for Einstein and will be performed in Palmerston North, Auckland, New Plymouth, Christchurch and Dunedin.

Both programmes also include a newly commissioned work from New Zealand composer Samuel Holloway. Matters is a piano quartet and Samuel says that during his research for the work, he was struck by the extremities of the scale of phenomena considered by physics: “from elementary particles to universes, the infinitesimally small to the unimaginably huge”.

Einstein’s Universe, a double programme of illustrated talk and concert tours to 10 New Zealand centres from Monday 15 July to Wednesday 31 July. For more information and to book tickets visit www.chambermusic.co.nz or www.royalsociety.org.nz/einstein

Chamber Music New Zealand acknowledges major funding from Creative New Zealand.

ENDS

© Scoop Media