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The Schiller Institute was founded at a conference in Wiesbaden, Germany, in 1984, and a second conference in Washington, D.C., in 1985, by Helga Zepp LaRouche, her husband, the controversial American figure Lyndon LaRouche, and American Civil Rights movement leader Amelia Boynton Robinson.
The Institute's published aim is to seek to apply the ideas of poet, dramatist and philosopher Friedrich Schiller to what it calls the "contemporary world crisis," emphasizing Schiller's concept of the interdependence of classical artistic beauty and republican political freedom, as elaborated in his series of essays entitled Letters on the Aesthetical Education of Man.
Its critics charge that the Schiller Institute is a cult.
Political Activity
The website of the Schiller Institute includes transcripts of conferences that the Institute has sponsored, throughout North and South American, Europe, Asia, Africa and Australia, to promote the idea of what it calls "peace through development." The discussion at these conferences has generally centered around Lyndon LaRouche's proposals for infrastructure projects such the "Eurasian Land-Bridge," and the "Oasis Plan", a Middle East peace agreement based on Arab-Israeli collaboration on major water projects. The conferences also typically discuss proposals for debt relief and the "New Bretton Woods," a proposal for a sweeping reorganization of the world monetary system (see Political views of Lyndon LaRouche.) The Institute strongly opposes the "Clash of Civilizations" thesis of Samuel Huntington, counterposing what it calls a "Dialogue of Cultures."
Cultural Activity
Music
In 1988 the Schiller Institute initiated a campaign to return to the so-called "Verdi tuning" in the world of classical music, so-called because it was Italian composer Giuseppe Verdi who originally waged a battle to stop the arbitrary rising of the pitch to which orchestras are tuned. The "Verdi tuning" is one where C=256HZ, or A=432HZ, as opposed to the common practice today of tuning to anywhere from A=440 to A in the 450+ range.
Many prominent singers and instrumentalists actively campaigned for the Schiller Institute's proposal, including several who performed recitals for the Institute to demonstrate the different quality of the Verdi tuning, compared with contemporary tuning. These included Norbert Brainin, former First Violinist of the Amadeus Quartet, and the following vocalists: William Warfield (baritone), Carlo Bergonzi (tenor), and Piero Cappuccilli (baritone). Other well known vocalists who endorsed the initiative include Shirley Verrett (soprano), Joan Sutherland (soprano), George Shirley (tenor), Luciano Pavarotti (tenor), Sherrill Milne (baritone), Fedora Barbier (mezzosoprano), Grace Bumbry (soprano), Elly Ameling (soprano), Peter Schreier (tenor), Birgit Nilsson (soprano), Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau (baritone), Kurt Moll (basso), Marilyn Horne (mezzosoprano), and Ruggero Raimondi (basso).
In 1992, the Institute published A Manual on the Rudiments of Tuning and Registration: Book I: Introduction and Human Singing Voice. This book discusses the tuning issue from both the artistic and the scientific point of view.
Drama and Poetry
The Schiller Institute has published a four volume series of English translations of the works of Friedrich Schiller, entitled Poet of Freedom, as well as some translations into other languages. In Germany, Institute members have organized public performances of Schiller's plays, including Wilhelm Tell.
Death of Jeremiah Duggan
In November 6, 2003, a British inquest heard allegations that the Schiller Institute is an anti-Semitic cult that may have used mind-control techniques on a student who died after running onto a busy road in Wiesbaden, Germany, in what the German police initially deemed a suicide. The British coroner rejected a suicide verdict and ruled that the student died while in a "state of terror."
In March 2003, Jeremiah Duggan, a 22-year-old Jewish student from London, England, attended a Schiller Institute conference in Wiesbaden with members of the Schiller Institute and the LaRouche Youth Movement. He learned about the conference after being handed a LaRouche newspaper outside the Sorbonne in Paris, where he was studying. After six days in Wiesbaden, Duggan telephoned his mother to say he "wanted out," was "frightened" and "in deep trouble," before the line went dead. His mother told the inquest that her son sounded terrified. Forty-five minutes later, he ran for one kilometer down the middle of a busy road and was killed after being hit by three cars. Duggan's mother believes the Schiller Institute used mind-control techniques on her son in an effort to have him join the organization. The family has hired a Berlin lawyer to have the German police investigation re-opened. A spokesperson for the Lyndon LaRouche organization has strongly denied that the Schiller Institute played a role in Duggan's death. *
Conferences
These are highlights of conferences from the Schiller Institute's 20-year history.
- Nov. 1-3, 1985: "Saint Augustine, Father of European and African Civilization" — Rome, Italy
- Labor Day conference, 1986, featuring a performance of Mozart's Requiem at C=256HZ, with Schiller chorus and orchestra — Reston, Virginia, U.S.A.
- Nov. 22-23, 1990: "The Productive Triangle: Centerpiece of an All-Eurasian Infrastructure Program, Locomotive for a New, Just World Economic Order" — Berlin, Germany
- April 26-30, 1993: International conference on religions sponsored by the government of Sudan — Khartoum
- Aug. 7-14, 1994: Educational-cultural seminar for young musicians and artists, featuring Norbert Brainin, Lyndon LaRouche, and Helga Zepp LaRouche — Smolenice Castle, Slovakia
- July 17, 1997: Presentation by Dr. Jozef Miklosko, president of the Slovakian branch of the Schiller Institute and former vice premier of post-communist Czechoslovakia — Manila, Phillipines
- Dec. 13, 2000: Memorial seminar for Russian Schiller Institute leader Taras V. Muranivsky — Moscow, Russia