Classical RANT!

hexennacht:

Funerary bust of a woman, from Palmyra, Syria. 3rd-century CE.

Cool that this is from the third century Palmyra, a.k.a. when the city-state was at the height of its power both as an ally and adversary of Rome. First Odaenathus is holding shit down for the emperor Gallienus in the East against the Sassanids, but then after his death Queen Zenobia flips the script and is all like, “You want your eastern provinces back, you’ll have to take them back.” Cleopatra retains an elevated historical status through her association with Caesar and Antony, but she pales to Zenobia in individual dynamism and willfulness.

This year the Finnish composer and conductor Esa-Pekka Salonen is the guest of honnor of the 20th edition of Radio-France’s annual contemporary music festival: Présences.

It kicks off on Wednesday 3 February with a concert at the Finnish Institute in Paris and will last until 19 February. Most concerts - 13 in total - will take place at the Théâtre du Châtelet. The resident orchestra is the Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio-France.