The »MAGIC« of the Dresden Music Festival has unfolded its full charm in the past four and a half weeks. Musical highlights, standing ovations, and dancing guests in the concert halls: With the first full-scale edition since the start of the pandemic, director Jan Vogler and his team managed to send audiences home in a euphoric mood. Since May 11, around 42,000 guests have flocked to 65 concerts in 25 venues in Dresden. Despite a late start to the ticket pre-sales and the decision to open venues to full capacity at short notice, seat utilization reached 85 percent. The success of the Dresden Music Festival is also reflected in ticket revenue, which amounted to near 1,4 million Euros.
The Paul Ben-Haim ACUM Award 2022 for Lifetime Achievement is given to composer Ella Milch-Sheriff.
“She is one of the most significant and exciting composers in Israeli music. She composes wonderful works and does not refrain from coping with complicated and thrilling subjects. Ella’s collaboration with great poets and authors as well as her extraordinary fruitfulness led to musical masterpieces and tremendous success in Israel and around the world.“, says the statement of the Society of Authors, Composers and Music Publishers in Israel ACUM.
With the CD release The Mandolin Seasons, Omer Meir Wellber and mandolinist Jacob Reuven fulfill a long-held wish.
Jacob Reuven and Omer Meir Wellber grew up together in the Israeli desert city of Be’er Sheva – Reuven with Iraqi Jewish roots and Wellber coming from a western Jewish community. United since childhood by an irrepressible joie de vivre, they have a shared passion for music and, more specifically, for the instruments of their homeland, learned as schoolboys: mandolin and accordion… (more in the booklet)
And it is with these instruments that the two musicians together with the Sinfonietta Leipzig (musicians of the Gewandhausorchester) completely rediscover the seasons of Vivaldi and Piazzolla in The Mandolin Seasons.
With Omer Meir Wellber in the role of conductor and continuo player on harpsichord and accordion – meaning he is improvising in both “Seasons” – and Jacob Reuven’s desire to reshape the works for mandolin, both explore and create a new exotic sound world with it.
The recording will be released by Hyperion on 6 May.
Jacob Reuven– mandolin Omer Meir Wellber – accordion, harpsichord, conductor Sinfonietta LeipzigVivaldi: Violin Concerto in F minor “Winter” RV297 Piazzolla: Invierno porteño (No. 2, “Winter for the people of Buenos Aires” from Las cuatro estaciones porteñas) Vivaldi: Violin concerto in E major “Spring” RV269 Piazzolla: Primavera porteña (No. 3, “Springtime for the people of Buenos Aires“) Vivaldi: Violin Concerto in G minor “Summer” RV315 Piazzolla: Verano porteño (No. 4, “Summer for the people of Buenos Aires“) Vivaldi: Violin concerto in F major “Autumn” RV293 Piazzolla: Otoño porteño (No. 1, “Autumn for the people of Buenos Aires“)
A new production of Wagner’s Tannhäuser under the musical direction of Kent Nagano will celebrate its premiere at the Hamburg State Opera this Sunday, 24 April. The production by Kornél Mundruczó with Klaus Florian Vogt in the title role will be broadcast live on NDR Kultur.
“I can’t change much in this score because there is a strong energy and everything is so precise, for example in the dynamics,” Omer Meir Wellber says of the Puccini composition. The new production of Madama Butterfly, directed by Amon Miyamoto, will premiere at the Dresden Semperoper on 6 April 2022. Further information can be found here.
On 9 March 2022, Kent Nagano will conduct the premiere of Leonard Bernstein’s A Quiet Place at the Opéra national de Paris in the Palais Garnier in a new production by Krzysztof Warlikowski. This marks Nagano’s return to the Opéra national de Paris, where he has previously conducted Wozzeck, Elektra, Dialogues des carmélites, Cardillac and Werther.
9 March Paris, Palais Garnier
Bernstein: A Quiet PlacePremiere
Other performances: 10, 13, 16, 18, 21, 23, 24, 26, 29, 30 March
Krzysztof Warlikowski – staging
In 2018, a recording of A Quiet Place with the Orchestre Symphonique de Montréal conducted by Nagano was previously released on the Decca Classics label. Please find more information here.
On 10 December, Midori plays the German premiere of Detlev Glanert’s Violin Concerto No. 2, dedicated to her, with the NDR Elbphilharmonie Orchestra conducted by Brad Lubman. Glanert’s Violin Concerto was written based on the thematic model of Beethoven’s letter to the “Immortal Beloved” and, like the letter itself, is arranged in three parts.
Today conductor Kent Nagano celebrates his 70th birthday – duly celebrated by previous companions, musicians, colleagues and many others. We wish him a very happy birthday!
Here you can find a video of Deutsche Welle about Kent Nagano and his birthday:
Currently, Omer Meir Wellber is at the Wiener Staatsoper conducting Bizet’s Carmen in a production by Calixto Bieito. For more information on the cast and upcoming dates on 13, 16, 19 November, please click here.
Here you can find a conversation in German with Omer Meir Wellber about his current projects but also his musical career.
DIE KUNST DER GRENZENLOSIGKEIT
Über sein Arbeitspensum staunt man immer wieder: Omer Meir Wellber ist Chefdirigent des BBC Philharmonic Orchestra, Musikdirektor des Teatro Massimo in Palermo, erster Gastdirigent an der Semperoper in Dresden, daneben absolviert er Dirigate an wichtigen Häusern wie der Metropolitan Opera in New York, dem Fenice in Venedig, der Israeli Opera in Tel Aviv, in München, Berlin, Mailand. Ab der kommenden Spielzeit tritt er darüber hinaus als Musikdirektor der Volksoper Wien an. Zusätzlich schreibt er Bücher, engagiert sich in Vermittlungs- und Sozialprojekten und lernt Sprachen. Und findet Zeit für Interviews, wie mit Oliver Láng, der mit dem 1981 in der Wüstenstadt Be’er Sheva geborenen Dirigenten über sein arbeitsintensives Leben, seine Beziehung zu Carmen und über Grenzen im Leben sprach…
