Author: Andrea Kerner

The Between Worlds Ensemble, founded by Avi Avital, combines different genres, cultures and musical worlds. Its members are at home in both classical and non-classical repertoire, and its programmes combine classical compositions with traditional music heard in arrangements created especially for these performances. Together with the Georgian Rustavi Ensemble they explore musical traditions around the Black Sea.

BLACK SEA
With works by G. Kancheli, S. Tsintsadze, F. Say and traditional music
Between Worlds Ensemble / Rustavi Ensemble / Avi Avital, mandoline & leader
12 February 2023, Pierre Boulez Saal, Berlin
14 February 2023, Warsaw
15 February 2023, Elbphilharmonie Hamburg

To love and death – together with its spiritus rector René Jacobs, the B’ROCK ORCHESTRA conquers the (early) romantic repertoire of the 19th century in all its drama and also lets supposedly all-too-familiar repertoire shine in new splendour. Soprano Christiane Karg guarantees a particularly sensitive and clever interpretation of Mozart’s concert arias.

Wednesday, 25. & Friday, 26. January 2023, BASF-Feierabendhaus Ludwigshafen
Venga La Morte!
With works by C.M. von Weber, W. A. Mozart and F. Schubert

Handel’s Italian cantatas are among the most beautiful compositions he left to posterity. The interpretation by the Finnish Baroque Orchestra and soprano Carolyn Sampson promises pulsating life as if under the southern sun – even in January!

Carolyn Sampson, one of Britain’s leading sopranos specialising in Baroque and Classical music, has teamed up with the outstanding Scandinavian ensemble for this programme. Handel’s works, written around 1707 in Florence or Rome, alternate with pieces by two members of the Scarlatti family.

Thursday, 19 January 2023, Wigmore Hall, London
UN’ALMA INNAMORATA – Handel’s Italian Arias
With works by G. F. Handel, Alessandro and Domenico Scarlatti

The Oberon Trio and tenor Ian Bostridge are a well-rehearsed team. Especially when it comes to the joint programmes with arrangements of English, Scottish and Welsh folk songs for voice and chamber music by Beethoven and Haydn: “Listening is simply a pleasure,” was the verdict of the Passauer Neue Presse on the programme in summer 2022. In January 2023, they will be guests at the Philharmonie Essen.

Sunday, 15 January 2023, Philharmonie Essen
Folk song arrangements by Ludwig van Beethoven & Joseph Haydn

Another turbulent and eventful year lies behind us – while on the one hand we are pleased and relieved to note that, despite the pandemic, music can once again take place under the usual conditions, on the other hand the war in Ukraine and its consequences have presented us with new questions and challenges. So we can hardly speak of a “return to normality”, but rather a “different normality”, which is characterised by the fact that it does not seem so “normal”. As a society and as individuals, in both professional and private contexts, we have to adapt to big and small, slow and fast, fundamental and less significant changes – and are always faced with the choice of seeing them as a challenge or an opportunity.

We are grateful to be able to look back on a year that has brought us challenges, but also many exciting opportunities: our team has grown and been able to develop new skills, and more ensembles have joined us; artists who are breaking new ground with new ideas and showing that change can also mean enrichment – including the Babylon Orchestra, the franz ensemble, Elina Albach’s Continuum and the Phantasm Viol Consort.

Before we start our Christmas holidays, we would like to give you a short preview of the upcoming concerts we are looking forward to:

⭐︎ Freiburg Baroque Orchestra and Vox Luminis
⭐︎ Il Giardino Armonico and Isabelle Faust
⭐︎ Oberon Trio and Ian Bostridge
⭐︎ and further concerts in January and February.

But most of all, we would like to wish you all happy and relaxing holidays & a Happy New Year 2023!

Andreas Richter, Andrea Kerner, Julia Larigo, Michael Sauter, Daniela Gast, Capucine Valois & Benjamin Kaiser

“Wo die Sprache aufhört, fängt die Musik an”

The first edition of TRIOGIPFEL will pay tribute to one of the most important artists of German Romanticism: E.T.A. Hoffmann, whose death anniversary in June 2022 is the 200th. Although world-famous today primarily as the author of a body of work as profound as it is imaginative, Hoffmann devoted much of his artistic and publishing output to music: he worked as a Kapellmeister and music director in Bamberg, Leipzig and Dresden, published music reviews (including several important Beethoven reviews), essays and musical narratives, and began composing at a young age. His rich oeuvre includes stage plays and vocal music as well as a whole series of chamber music compositions, including the Piano Trio in E major.

In addition to Hoffmann’s “Grand Trio” in E major, the programme includes Beethoven’s “Ghost Trio”, Brahms Piano Trio op. 8, Schumann’s Piano Trio No. 2 and specially commissioned piano trios by Britta Byström and Frank Zabel. The Oberon Trio has invited two internationally renowned trios, the Morgenstern Trio from Amsterdam and the Amatis Trio from Salzburg, as musical partners for this successful summit storming. The musical repertoire is complemented by a carefully curated selection of texts by E.T.A. Hoffmann, presented by actress Stella Maria Adorf.

The TRIOGIPFEL E.T.A. 200 will be climbed as a long concert night at KühlhausBerlin, an exciting new venue for classical music in the immediate vicinity of Gleisdreieck Park. A place of encounter and creativity, open to partnerships, impulses, ideas – open to Berlin and its artists.

19 November 2022, KühlhausBerlin
Ludwig van Beethoven: Piano Trio D major op. 70/1 “Geistertrio”
Britta Byström: Doppelgänger Music (world premiere commissioned by the Oberon Trio)
Johannes Brahms: Piano Trio B major op. 8
Robert Schumann: Piano Trio No. 2 F major op. 80
Frank Zabel: 3. Trio (Der Sandmann) (world premiere commissioned by the Oberon Trio)
E.T.A. Hoffmann: Piano Trio in E major “Grand Trio” (played by all trios)
E.T.A. Hoffmann: Excerpts from “Der Sandmann”, “Die Elixiere des Teufels” and other texts

This unique project combines horn concertos by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart with traditional Cuban music. Inspired by the Mozart statue in the heart of Havana and by the vibrancy of Cuban musical life, horn player Sarah Willis developed, rehearsed and recorded the programme with the Havana Lyceum Orchestra under the direction of José Antonio Mendéz Padrón. The first part of the recording was already released in 2020, and the second part was released at the beginning of September 2022, which will now be flanked by several concerts in Germany.

WOLFGANG AMADEUS MOZART
Horn Concerto No.1 in D major, K. 412
Horn Concerto No.2 in E flat major, K. 417
CUBAN DANCES for solo horn, strings and percussion
YUNIET LOMBIDA Danzón de la Medianoche
WILMA ALBA CAL Guaguancó Sencillo
JORGE ARAGÓN Un Bolero para Sarah
ERNESTO OLIVA ¡Ay Comay! Un Changü. pa´Sari
MARÍA TERESA VERA Veinte Años (arr. by Jorge Aragón)
RICHARD EGÜES El Bodeguero (arr. by Jorge Aragón)
EDGAR OLIVERO Pa Pa Pa
(inspired by the Papageno/Papagena duet from W. A. Mozart’s The Magic Flute)

24 Oktober 2022 – Allerheiligen-Hofkirche München
29 Oktober 2022 – Berliner Philharmonie Kammermusiksal

With the Building Bridges mentoring programme, Sir András Schiff has established a unique model for the sustainable promotion of young talent, enabling young pianists to build their own bridges to the professional music world. Each season András Schiff, who himself built his internationally acclaimed career without the springboard of a major competition win, selects three gifted pianists with special musical personalities and, in cooperation with conc.arts berlin, arranges recitals for them at concert promoters and festivals throughout Europe. The aim is to support the young artists in establishing their own connections in the professional music world in order to develop their own sustainable network. For the 2022/23 season, Tom Borrow, Avery Gagliano and Julia Hamos have been selected for the programme. At the end of September, the programme will start the new season with its first concerts.

29 September – Avery Gagliano with works by J. S. Bach, F. Chopin and K. Szymanowski
02 Oktober – Avery Gagliano with works by J. S. Bach, F. Chopin and K. Szymanowski
02 Oktober – Julia Hamos with works by J. S. Bach, G.Kurtág and G. Ligeti