On November 9, 2009, Berlin will celebrate the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall. Over one thousand 8-foot high tiles will be stacked along the route the wall followed, and, with much fanfare, they will be toppled like dominoes.
Daniel Barenboim will conduct the Berlin Philharmonic in a special concert, as one of many celebrations that will mark the event in Germany and around the world.
Commemorations began last week in the US with a visit from German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who spoke before an historic joint session of Congress on Tuesday, November 3, the first German leader to do so since Konrad Adenauer in 1957.
France will mark the occasion with an open-air concert and laser show held on the Place de la Concorde. According to The New York Times, the concert features prominent cellists from each of the European Union’s 27 member nations in a piece inspired by a musical tribute given at Checkpoint Charlie two days after its fall by cellist Mstislav Rostropovich.
Through a program called Maurreise, or Journey of the Wall, symbolic wall bricks have been sent to artists in Korea, Cyprus, Yemen, among other divided countries. Artists have been asked to incorporate these bricks into works expressing the pain of people separated by impenetrable borders. Here's a link to the German Embassy in Washington DC, containing updates on No Man's Land, comments by German citizens who lived through the event, and much more: http://www.germany.info/Vertretung/usa/en/10__Press__Facts/03__Infocus/04__Without__Walls/__Main__S.html
Also, see Arts and Letters Daily (www.aldaily.com) for a robust list of events, and a varied collection of rememberances.
reporter, writer, wife, mother, stepmother, grandmother, photographer, singer, knitter, swimmer -- not all at the same time songbird@birdsonawireblog.com
