Olivia in Berlin – 11th – 12th of December 2007

April 2007 – HKG Coliseum – backstage: Peter asked Olivia about concerts in Europe. She answered, that she might come to Germany at the end of 2007 to celebrate the 125^th birthday of her grandfather Max Born (Nobel price winner 1954 for Physics). This was the first hint – a reliable source, but at this time it was not 100 % confirmed. As you all know it is nearly impossible to get information from Olivia’s management. Therefore all we could do was searching on the web, looking for any events suiting for this occasion. So we found out that a Max Born symposium would take place in December, but no hint whether Olivia would attend. Contacts by email and phone to the organizers (Max-Born-Institut (MBI), Berlin www.mbi-berlin.de and Max-Planck-Institut für Wissenschaftsgeschichte, Berlin www.mpiwg-berlin.mpg.de) were also without concrete results. On her tour through Canada in November Olivia told Heike that she would come to Germany in December. But again she gave no more details. So, what to do? 5 hours by car from the Ruhrarea to Berlin, more than 6 hours from Frankfurt. Taking the risk? Without any confirmation?

On Monday, Heike was dead set on trying it. Peter told her because of the missing information he prefers to stay at home. But looking again at the website of MBI we found out a new hint, that the symposium was open to the “interested public”. So we phoned again to MBI on Tuesday morning to register to the symposium and both of us hit the road to Berlin.

Arriving at the MBI in Berlin-Adlershof we found out that some members of the organizing committee seem to be a little nervous, waiting for something to happen. A RBB (Radio Berlin Brandenburg) camera crew was also waiting for something or someone. So the hope of meeting Olivia grew upJ And yes, at 2:30 p.m. a taxi arrived with Olivia and some members of the Born family. There was a short welcome in the forum of the Max-Born-Hall, where the symposium took place, a photo shooting with Olivia, her family and her friends and an interview with RBB.

A little too late the symposium started with some opening remarks and two lectures concerning “Wave Mechanics: Max Born’s Legacy” and “Femtosecond Optics: More than just really fast” – interesting, but also sophisticated content;-) Olivia and her family followed the lectures from the front rows. Maybe 150 – 200 people joined this session, but only two devoted Olivia fans;-) Therefore we had the chance to conduct a personal conversation to Olivia and Rona during a break, Olivia signed an old German single “Unten am Fluß, der Ohio heißt” (Banks of Ohio) for Peter and we were able to take some more pictures.

Olivia was cute and friendly as always. And she really seemed to enjoy meeting her family. She asked us where the second part of the symposium would take place. Learning that it was in another part of Berlin, she decided not to attend the second day, but to leave directly to London.

After the two lectures Gustav Born, the son of Max Born and the uncle of Olivia, introduced his nice to the audience and Olivia replied with a little address to the audience.

At 5 p.m. there was a reception to finish the first day of the symposium. During that we had the possibility for further contacts to Olivia and her family. Olivia and Rona left the reception at about 5:30 p.m.

At 6 p.m. some busses left for central Berlin to take the attendants of the symposium to the evening banquet. Because we had no invitation we were not able to join this event. Nevertheless we went to the Westin Grand Berlin at Friedrichstr. www.westin.com/berlin and enjoyed sitting in the marvellous lobby of this 5 stars hotel while Olivia was singing on the 1^st floor five songs during the banquet:

-          Happy Birthday

-          I honestly love you

-          Grace and Gratitude (not confirmed 100%)

-          Over the rainbow

-          Silent night in German and maybe also in English  

We could not listen, but some of the attendants gave this information to us on Wednesday. Olivia was accompanied on the piano only (local pianist).

Though we knew, that Olivia and Rona would not join the second day, we decided to go to the Max-Planck-Institut für Wissenschaftsgeschichte, Berlin-Dahlem to participate to the second day of the symposium. From 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. we heared some interesting lectures about Max Born, his scientific, but also political life. Gustav Born was one of the lecturers, Nancy Greenspan another one. Nancy Greenspan is the biographer of Max Born, but in fact also a close friend of Olivia. During the coffee breaks we had some more interesting talks to Nancy Greenspan, to Gustav Born and some other attendants.

Both of us are born in the Ruhrarea, therefore we were fascinated to find out that there is a long and strong connection between the Born/Newton-John family and a family of an industrialist in Recklinghausen (city in the Ruhrarea) – including visits and stays in Recklinghausen. Caused by this close and personal relationship e.g. there is a Max-Born-Foundation and a Max-Born-Berufskolleg (special kind of technical school) www.max-born-berufskolleg.de  located at Recklinghausen.

So taking the risk really was worthwhile for both of us! Marvellous days in Berlin!

Best regards from Germany

Peter and Heike