| |
|
|
|
|
|
||
 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
| |||||
|
|||||
|
|||||
|
Pianist Lambert Orkis Receives Federal Cross
“We are here to honor an outstanding person, an outstanding musician and an outstanding educator,” Ambassador Klaus Scharioth announced in presenting the Cross of the Order of the Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany to pianist Lambert Orkis on April 15. Orkis, who’s grandfather was German, started playing the piano at the age of five. One year later he was playing Mozart and Haydn sonatas. The great German composers have always been his passion. Orkis has performed all over the world, including in numerous benefit concerts. He also passes on his gift by teaching music to the younger generation. “When the letter from the Embassy arrived, I first thought it was a bill,” Orkis said with a wink on Tuesday at the ceremony in the Ambassador’s Residence. With the help of a German-English dictionary he found out it was quite the opposite. German Federal President Horst Köhler had indeed awarded him the Cross of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany. “I feel so wonderfully honored to get an award for something I find so natural to do,” Orkis said. “I play and teach German music out of a sense of responsibility but also out of a sense of me connecting with my German heritage.” Also present at the ceremony was internationally renowned violinist Anne-Sophie Mutter of Germany. Orkis has accompanied and collaborated with Mutter for some 20 years, first accompanying her in 1988 at her Carnegie Hall debut. April 16, 2008Link
|
|
 Culture & Life   Life
Newsletters
 Printer-Friendly
Page
Email This Article |
||
|
|||||
|
|||||
