It was in 1993 when cellists Jan Vogler and Peter Bruns and violinst Kai Vogler founded their own yearly festival for chamber music in Moritzburg near Dresden, along the lines of the Marlboro Festival in the US. Over the years, the Moritzburg Festival has established as one of the leading international festivals of its kind and will celebrate its 20^th anniversary this summer from 10-25 August 2013 under the artistic direction of Jan Vogler.

You can find the 2013 festival program HERE.

Old and new companions, such as violinists Midori, Nicola Benedetti, Kai Vogler, violist Nils Mönkemeyer, cellist Peter Bruns, pianists Kristian Bezuidenhout, Alice Sara Ott, Antti Siirala, and soprano Juliane Banse, are following Jan Vogler’s invitation this year to rehearse and perform together in Moritzburg. Composer-in-residence of the anniversary edition will be one of the most renowned and versatile contemporaries, Wolfang Rihm.

For the 8^th time, 45 students from all over the world will form the Moritzburg Festival Orchestra and rehearse and perform chamber and orchestra works together, this year under the direction of conductor Eric Jacobsen. Among others, they will present the gala concert on 11 August with violinist Midori and Berg’s violin concerto „To the Memory of an Angel“.

The program compiles works of past festival editions and CD productions: among compositions by Wolfgang Rihm, works by Schubert, Piazzolla, Schumann, Wagner, Korngold, Messiaen, Bach and others will be presented. For the first time, one of the venues will be a hangar of the Elbe aircraft factory Dresden, and furthermore the familiar baroque halls of the Moritzburg castle, Dresden’s Palais im Großen Garten and Frauenkirche, as well as the Transparent Factory of Volkswagen.

Prior to the festival, „Moritzburg Festival on tour“ will guestperform at the Festspielhaus Baden-Baden on 7 July.

Please also visit http://www.moritzburgfestival.de/english.

A video about the 2012 Moritzburg Festival with three composers-in-residence can be found here.