News – Page 13 – PR² classic

24. March 2023

The young recorder player and allround musician Max Volbers (March 2023)

The young recorder player and allround musician Max Volbers will be playing in a wide variety of constellations in the coming weeks. This Sunday he will play a program entitled “Comprovisations” in Kleve as recorder player together with the lutenist David Bergmüller and in early April as harpsichordist at the Festival de Paques in Aix-en-Provence together with the recorder player Lucie Horsch.

26 March – Kleve, Museum Kurhaus
Max Volbers – recorder
David Bergmüller – lute
“Comprovisations”

3 April – Aix-en-Provence, Festival de Pâques
Max Volbers – harpsichord
Lucie Horsch – recorder
“Conversations”

24. March 2023

The Dresden Music Festival launches an artistic and academic Wagner Project with the Dresden Festival Orchestra and Concerto Köln (March 2023)

As part of a comprehensive artistic and academic project, the Dresden Music Festival will explore the original sound of Richard Wagner, starting in 2023. The project’s mission is to present an annual concert performance of one part of Richard Wagner’s opera tetralogy »Der Ring des Nibelungen« by the Dresden Festival Orchestra and Concerto Köln under the baton of Kent Nagano, using historical instruments and the linguistic style of the time of its creation. The performance of Richard Wagner’s »Das Rheingold« at Dresden’s Kulturpalast on June 14, 2023 marks the project’s official launch.
The project under the artistic leadership of Festival Intendant Jan Vogler and conductor Kent Nagano will bring together Wagner experts and performers from all over the world in Dresden.

»The Dresden Music Festival is proud to deliver new impulses from Dresden to the world with this visionary project. I am sure that this new ›Ring‹ from Dresden and the musicological research involved will have a lasting influence on the reception and interpretation of Wagner’s music,« says Jan Vogler, Intendant of the Dresden Music Festival.

»From the instruments to vocal style and the general treatment of words – much of what we experience today during typical Wagner performances differs from the customs at Wagner’s time. We look forward to delving into the fascinating musical world of the 19th century together with our audience, which also includes asking critical questions that are necessary when it comes to a person such as Wagner,« says Kent Nagano, Artistic Director of the Wagner Project and Conductor Laureate of Concerto Köln.

The »Rheingold« premiere on June 14 will be accompanied by a comprehensive Wagner program. Under the leadership of the project’s academic curator PD Dr. Kai Müller, musicians from both orchestras will offer a workshop concert on the evening before the premiere, illustrating academic aspects of historical performance practice with musical examples. On the day of the premiere, the Kulturpalast will host an exhibition with several stations on Wagner’s oeuvre, short lectures in the foyer and a Wagner Café, from 12 noon onwards.

Cast of »Das Rheingold« on June 14, 2023 in Dresden:
Derek Welton (Wotan)
Dominik Köninger (Donner)
Mauro Peter (Loge)
Tansel Akzeybek (Froh)
Katrin Wundsam (Fricka)
Nadja Mchantaf (Freia)
Gerhild Romberger (Erda)
Daniel Schmutzhard (Alberich)
Thomas Ebenstein (Mime)
Tijl Faveyts (Fasolt)
Tilmann Rönnebeck (Fafner)
Ania Vegry (Woglinde)
Ida Aldrian (Wellgunde)
Eva Vogel (Floßhilde)

2. March 2023

New CD by Jan Vogler released on Sony (February 2023)

Cellist Jan Vogler’s new recording for Sony Classical features the world premiere recording of Enrique Casals’ Concerto for Cello and Orchestra in F major and also includes Edouard Lalo’s Concerto for Cello and Orchestra in D minor – together with the Moritzburg Festival Orchestra, the CD commemorates the 200th anniversary of Édouard Lalo’s birth and is also a tribute to Pablo Casals, who became world famous as a cellist and is also the brother of Enrique Casals, on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of his death.

24. February 2023

Omer Meir Wellber will become General Music Director of the Philharmonic State Orchestra Hamburg and General Music Director and Chief Conductor of the Hamburg State Opera (February 2023)

Hamburg, 24 February 2023 – Omer Meir Wellber will become Hamburg General Music Director of the Philharmonic State Orchestra as well as General Music Director and Chief Conductor of the Hamburg State Opera as of the 2025/2026 season.

The press release of the Hamburg Ministry of Culture and Media can be here.

13. February 2023

Festival Présences 2023 with Kent Nagano on ARTE (February 2023)

ORCHESTRE PHILHARMONIQUE DE RADIO FRANCE
KENT NAGANO

LEONIDAS KAVAKOS violin
JEAN-FRÉDÉRIC NEUBURGER piano
WILHEM LATCHOUMIA piano
LUCILE DOLLAT Organ
Soloists of the CHŒUR DE RADIO FRANCE

Johann Sebastian Bach/Thomas Lacôte: Six-part Ricercar (orchestral version by Thomas Lacôte – commissioned by Radio France, world premiere)
Unsuk Chin: 2nd Violin Concerto “Shards of Silence” (French premiere)
Johann Sebastian Bach: The righteous man perishes
Yann Robin: Requiem Æternam – Monumenta II pour deux pianos, orgue, chœur et orchestre (commissioned by Radio France – world premiere)

19. January 2023

Kent Nagano conducts premiere in Hamburg (January 2023)

On 22 January, Kent Nagano conducts the premiere of Shostakovich’s Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk in a production by Angelina Nikonova. The story of the opera is based correspondent tale by Nikolaj Leskow. Other performances are 25, 28 and 31 January, and 4 and 8 February. More information can be found here.

“A woman becomes a murderess, but still the 26-year-old composer Shostakovich has sympathy for her. Katerina Ismailova – killer and victim at the same time – frees herself from a business world full of dullness, greed and cruelty by poisoning her Father-in-law in order to be able to live with her lover. This is accompanied by music of radical vitality that vehemently expresses the right to one’s own desire, to recklessly lived freedom. The international success from Leningrad to New York, from Stockholm to Zurich was abruptly ended when Stalin expressed his disapproval. Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk also became a work of fate for the composer.” (Hamburg State Opera, 2023)

Musical direction: Kent Nagano
Production: Angelina Nikonova
Stage and costumes: Varvara Timofeeva
Lighting: Igor Fomin
Dramaturgy: Ralf Waldschmidt
Choir: Eberhard Friedrich

18. January 2023

David Philip Hefti receives the Composer Award of the International Classical Music Awards (January 2023)

Composer and conductor David Philip Hefti will be honored with the Composer Award of the International Classical Music Awards (ICMA) in April 2023, and it is precisely the diversity of his works that is the focus. “Hefti’s tonal language captivates with an enormously wide spectrum of expressive means. Luminous timbres and dramatic constructions are as much a part of it as subtle and fragile sonic developments. The spectrum of genres in which the composer expresses himself is also wide, with the result that his music reaches performers as well as a broad audience.” said jury president Remy Franck.

For Hefti, “it is an honor to be given this year’s ICMA Composer Award. After the Corona years of artistic starvation, I’m grateful to ICMA’s distinguished jury for their tireless work in showing us a hopeful perspective through pre-pandemic diversity and abundance, which is important in every sense, especially today.” The award ceremony at the National Forum for Music in Wroclaw will include Hefti’s work con moto – Beziehungsweisen für Orchester, commissioned in 2014 by the Bamberg Symphony Orchestra and its principal conductor Jonathan Nott. For the composer, this work in particular is very appropriate, since “the title should be understood as a desire to get cultural life moving again.” More information on the work and a short audio preview can be found here.

The 2022/23 season saw the world premiere of Hefti’s Rhapsody for baritone and orchestra, a work based on texts by Sir Salman Rushdie and featuring soloist Benjamin Appl and the Württemberg Chamber Orchestra Heilbronn under Case Scaglione. On 4 February at 8:03 p.m. CET, the work can be listened to at the SWR2 evening concert. Furthermore, the world premiere of the saxophone quartet Harmonia with the Kebyart Ensemble at the Tonhalle Zurich on 6 February (further performance on 23 March at the Casino Basel) and the world premiere of the Fünf Concerti for String Orchestra with the Berlin Baroque Soloists at the Kammerkonzerte Laufen on 30 June, after which a CD recording is taking place, will follow this season. In addition, Hefti’s Danse interstellaire, funeral music for basset clarinet and string quartet, will be performed with the Merel Quartet in Lucerne (1 Feb), Zurich (2 Feb) and Triesen (3 Feb).

More information on David Philip Hefti’s works as well as concerts can be found at hefti.net

18. January 2023

“Ring” project in historically informed performance practice (December 2022)

The year 2023 marks the beginning of a major musical and scientific project in Dresden to research and perform Richard Wagner’s “Der Ring des Nibelungen” in historical performance practice. With the opening concert and premiere of “Rheingold” in Dresden on 14 June 2023, the Dresden Festival Orchestra together with Concerto Köln under the artistic direction of Kent Nagano will perform Richard Wagner’s “Ring” in a historically informed perspective.

Continuing the “Wagner Readings” initiated in 2016 by Kent Nagano, Concerto Köln and the Kunststiftung NRW, a relaunch of the project will take place together with the Dresden Festival Orchestra as part of the Dresden Music Festival. With the new location in Dresden – the city where Wagner spent his childhood and youth, the premiere site of three operas and the starting point of the conceptual history of the “Ring” – groundbreaking impulses can be expected in the development and implementation of this performance workshop. A unique feature is the scientifically based reconstruction of the instrumental, vocal, linguistic and stage practice of Wagner’s time, for which renowned musicians and scholars from various disciplines are working closely together.

16. January 2023

Mari and Momo Kodama and Bremerhaven (January 2023)

With Poulenc’s Concerto for Two Pianos and Orchestra in D minor, Mari and Momo Kodama will give a guest performance at the Bremerhaven Stadttheater on 16, 17 and 18 January. A program entitled ” Wintersonnen” will be presented with the Philharmonic Orchestra of Bremerhaven under the direction of Marc Niemann. Further information can be found here.

After joint recordings of Mari and Momo Kodama with, among others, Tchaikovsky’s ballet suites have already been released by Pentatone (more information here), another recording together is planned.

5. January 2023

Ella Milch-Sheriff’s “The Eternal Stranger” in Boston and Zurich (January 2023)

In January, the monodrama “The Eternal Stranger” by Ella Milch-Sheriff will be performed in Boston and Zurich under the musical direction of Omer Meir Wellber and with speaker Eli Danker.

“The Eternal Stranger” was written on the occasion of Beethoven’s 250th birthday on Omer Meir Wellber’s initiative and takes as its starting point an astonishing and relatively unknown dream of Beethoven’s, which he reported to his friend and publisher Tobias Haslinger in a letter on September 10, 1821. In this dream, Beethoven travels as far as the Middle East and India and back again, finally reaching Jerusalem. There, his friend Tobias and a canon come to his mind, which he notes down in the letter. This letter inspired the Israeli playwright Joshua Sobol to write The Wanderings of the Eternal Refugee and the Struggle Against Despair, which in turn inspired Ella Milch-Sheriff’s The Eternal Stranger. The work reflects on the various facets of strangeness and asks who can be considered a stranger in the first place. The world premiere took place in Leipzig in 2020, and further performances have already taken place in Palermo, Manchester, Hamburg and Tel Aviv. More information about the work here.

With the Boston Symphony Orchestra on 5, 6 and 7 January, more information here. Other program highlights include Tchaikovsky’s Violin Concerto with renowned violinist Midori.

With the Tonhalle Zurich Orchestra on 12 and 13 January, more information here. In addition, Daniel Ciobanu will perform Prokofiev’s Piano Concerto No. 3.

PR² classic

Kontakt