In memory of Patrick Meadows and Stephanie Shepard
My friend Ingrid translated this German-language obituary from Mallorca Magazin on the Culture page, titled Trauer um Patrick Meadows, for me.
Here’s the original newspaper clipping.
On Thursday, May 4, the music festival in Deia begins. The founder died on April 22nd [2017]. An obituary.
Continue reading “Mourning for Patrick Meadows – An Obituary”
Am Donnerstag, 4. Mai, beginnt das Musikfestival in Deia. Dessen Gruender starb am 22. April. Ein Nachruf.
Mit einem Klavierabend des 15-jaerigen Wunderkinds Lixin Zhang in Son Marroig beginnt am Donnerstag, 4 Mai, um 20.30 Uhrdie 39. Ausgabe der Internationalen Musikfestivals in Deia.
Wie Festival Direktor Alfredo Oyaguez mitteilte, ist die Veranstaltungsreihe dieses Jahr ihrem Gruender Patrick Meadows gewidmed. Meadows schied am Samstag, 22. April, im Alter von 82 Jahren nach einer schweren Krankheit aus den Leben.
Meadows, geboren am 18. July 1934 in Oakhill, West Virginia, machte sich Anfang der 70er Jahre von der Ostkueste der USA auf den Weg nach Mallorca, liess sich erst in Galilea dann in Deia nieder.
Ab 1978 veranstaltete er mit seiner Lebensgefaehrtin Stephanie Shepard jede Woche Tafelmusik zum Sonnenuntergang in Son Marroig, dem frueheren Anwesen des Erzherzhogs, an der Freunde aus diversen Laendern teilnahmen. Diese Konzerte weiteten sich zum Internationalen Musikfestival von Deia aus.
An dem Festival nehmen Jahe fuer Jahr zalreiche Musiker von der Insel, dem Spanischen Festland und aus vielen anderen Laendern teil.
2008, drei Jahre nach dem Tod seiner Lebensgefaehrtin, gab Meadows die Leitung des Festivals an den Pianisten und Dirigenten Alfredo Oyaguez ab.
Die Pianistin Suzanne Bradbury wuerdigte den Verstorbenen als Pionier auf einer Insel, die mittlerweile reich an Festivals ist, sowie als kreativen und vielseitigen Kopf: Lehrer, Musiker, Schriftsteller, Forscher, Verleger.
Tatsaechlich grub Meadows bis dato unbekannte Werke in Archiven aus und veroeffentlichte sie, darunter ein “Grosses Konzertstueck ueber die Themen aus Mendelssohns ‘Lieder ohne Worte’: Fuer 2 Pianos” von Franz Liszt und Werke des britischen Komponisten Samuel Coleridge Taylor.
Meadows wird auf dem Friedhof von Deia beigesetzt, neben dem Grab von Stephanie Shepard.
(Typed and translated by my friend Ingrid) Here’s the original clipping.
Today was a very special day here in Cincinnati, Ohio. We met this afternoon at the cenotaph for Patrick and Stephanie, in the Shepard family plot. In addition to Stephanie’s immediate family (brother Tate, niece Alison and her husband Evan, nephew Carl and his wife Brittany, Stephanie’s son Tim and his family Kelly, Zoe, Nicolas, and Jillian) were Kathy, a long-time friend of Tate and of Stephanie, Lee, Patrick’s high-school and college friend, and myself.
The memorial included Continue reading “Today’s Memorial Was Amazing”
In just a couple of hours I will finally get to meet Stephanie’s family. I look forward to it.
At this time tomorrow the final memorial will be over and we’ll all be telling stories at one of Patrick’s favorite restaurants in their area. I’m looking forward to that too.
A couple of days after that and I’ll be home again, wrestling with parking shuttles, LA traffic, and the return to routine work days and occasional friends. I think I’m looking forward to that too, but I say it with some reticence, uncertain as to why. Perhaps it stems from my desire to stop closing chapters of Patrick’s book, as if it would change things somehow.
For now I’ll refocus. Two hours, then 24, and let the rest come when it will.
Here’s a map of Spring Grove Cemetery in Cincinnati Ohio, where the US memorial will be held on 21 October 2017 at 1:00 PM. The cenotaph honoring Stephanie and Patrick will be placed in Stephanie’s family plot. Continue reading “Map of Spring Grove Cemetery”
Here is the program for the memorial concert held on the 13 September 2017.
In addition to the works listed, the orchestra played two encores:
Tchaikovsky’s Elegy in Memory of I. Samarin and Piazzolla’s Libertango. The last piece was a brilliant choice, an uplifting, energized way to end the concert, a dynamic way of celebrating his life instead of mourning his demise.
Here are the guest book entries from the memorial concert of 13 September 2017. Thank you, everyone, for sharing your thoughts and memories of Patrick and Stephanie.
Published in Ultima Hora, 14 Sep 2017
PATRICK
by Emili Gené Vila
(English translation by Nicole.)
I remember him playing the double bass or an organ, conducting a chamber orchestra he himself had created, conducting a choir, or directing the Music Festival, a miracle that remains very much alive, eager to recall the enthusiasm with which Patrick turned Deià into a musical world reference. There were moving speeches to remember Patrick Meadows (Susanne Bradbury, an old friend of those heroic and wonderful times, was unable to finish her reading). There were his son, his friends, the owners of Son Marroig, the conductor Misha Rachelevsky — and Stephanie Shepard, present as always. It was an extraordinary concert, outside the original program of the Festival, that served to bid farewell to Patrick with the sadness of the loss (Schnauber’s piece and the elegy in the encore), but also with the elusive joy of music. The Kremlin Chamber Orchestra interpreted some of Patrick’s favourite pieces. In the first half we heard a transfigured Night that lifted the spirit of everyone present. Memorable, as was Tchaikovsky’s Serenade: two pieces that lead the orchestra to its full expression — a young orchestra that sounded as though it was composed only of masters. The concert was excellent in every way: precision, style, pure rhythm and vitality, as well as dynamic, subtle and conclusive in Piazzola’s Libertango — the conductor’s last present to us in the second encore. Vigour and enthusiasm: I can’t think of a better setting to pay tribute to that restless pioneer we all owe so much to.
Aquí está un artículo sobre el concierto conmemorativo de Patrick del periódico Ultima Hora y escrito por Emili Gene Vila.
Here’s an article about Patrick’s memorial concert from the Ultima Hora newspaper on 14 Sep 2017.
Here is the English translation by Nicole.
EL MUNDO, SUNDAY SEPTEMBER 17, 2017
CLASSICAL – KREMLIN STRINGS
HOMAGE TO MEADOWS
XXXIX DEIÀ FESTIVAL
Concert in memory of Patrick Meadows: Kremlin Strings. Conductor: Misha Rachlevsky. Repertoire: Works by Schubert, Schoenberg, Schnauber and Tchaikovsky. Location: Son Marroig. Date: September 13.
F.M. PALMA
(Translation by Nicole)
An elegy (Tchaikovsky) and a tango (Piazzola) crowned Misha Rachlevsky’s return to the Deià Festival in what turned out to be a very special evening in memory of Patrick Meadows – creator of the Festival – who passed away a few months ago. The truth is we missed a sign of affection such as this event, whose main instigators were the pianist Susan Bradbury and John Patrick, Meadow’s son. Continue reading “Concert Review from El Mundo”