Noteworthy performance, contest honor Beethoven’s 250th birthday.
Audiences who log on Sunday to a livestream benefit performance of Hershey Felder as Beethoven will also have the chance to vote for their favorite artistic interpretation of the composer’s life and work.
To commemorate Beethoven’s 250th birthday year, Felder sponsored a competition for U.S. residents age 13 and older who have been inspired by the composer to create works in artistic disciplines ranging from acting, singing, painting, poetry, instrument performance, oration and dance. The winner of the Hershey Felder Arts Prize Competition will come away with $25,000.
After his Sunday performance — livestreamed from his home in Florence, Italy as a benefit for TheatreWorks Silicon Valley — Felder will screen videos from the five finalists in the competition. Then the audience will have 20 minutes to vote for their favorite. But Felder gets the last word in selecting what he calls the “grand prize-winning submission.”
Prior to the July 6 submission deadline, Felder said the videos can gain inspiration from Beethoven’s published works, reinterpretations of his music, poetic interpretations of his life, deconstructions or even how something involving Beethoven relates to life today.
Felder has become a favorite performer in the Bay Area, creating one-man shows based on world-renowned composers. TheatreWorks
presented the world premiere of Felder’s Beethoven production in 2017, and he has also portrayed Tchaikovsky, Irving Berlin and Debussy at the Palo Alto theater company.
The July 12 show centers on both Beethoven and Dr. Gerhard von Breuning, who as a young boy cares for the composer during the last years of his life. During the show, Felder, a virtuoso pianist, will play some of the composer’s greatest works including “Moonlight Sonata,” Ninth Symphony and the “Emperor” Concerto.
The livestream begins at 5 p.m. Tickets are $55 per household at TheatreWorks.org or 650-4631960; ticketholders can either watch the show as it is streamed live or as a recording for 72 hours afterward.