Author: Andrea Kerner

Figure theatre and chamber music as one: actress Janna Mohr and composer Helena Winkelman recreate Grillparzer’s novella with the franz ensemble and tell the bizarre life story of a tragic clown who goes to ruin because of his idealism, which is as noble as it is impractical. Sounds, music stands, instrument parts and shadows take on a life of their own and grow together to form the backdrop of a turbulent folk festival. There, Grillparzer’s “anthropological ravenous hunger” ignites at the sight of an old boy smiling and absorbed in his terrible violin playing. The play is a playful love story and a social study at the same time – which is reflected in the music, which borrows a lot from old Viennese songs and dances. On the one hand, it brings Grillparzer’s time (and thus also Schubert’s) to life and, on the other, allows for maximum contrast with the newly composed sounds, which are sometimes a flood of water, sometimes a lonely night walk, sometimes an agitated speech, sometimes a slap in the face scene. The concert evening will open with Beethoven’s Septet op. 20, which also bears unmistakable echoes of its creation in Vienna.

Friday, 12 March 2023, Tabaksquartier Bremen
Der arme Spielmann – world premiere by Helena Winkelman. A commissioned composition by the franz ensemble.
L. v. Beethoven: Septet in E flat major op. 20
Janna Mohr, play & concept / Sebastian Ryser, direction / franz ensemble

Sunday, 12 March 2023, Cinema at the Delphi (Berlin-Weissensee)
Der arme Spielmann – Berlin premiere by Helena Winkelman. A commissioned work by the franz ensemble
L. v. Beethoven: Septet in E flat major op. 20 J
anna Mohr, play & concept / Sebastian Ryser, direction / franz ensemble

The year 2023 has begun and we are looking forward to some special projects and concert programmes in the coming months:

Phantasm: world premiere The Art of Being Human
Il Giardino Armonico: from Europe to Korea
franz ensemble: world premiere of Der arme Spielmann
Building Bridges: A cooperation with C. Bechstein
Classics on the road: On the road with the Freiburger Barockorchester, Vox Luminis and others Classical music new and different with the Between Worlds Ensemble, CONTINUUM and CHAARTS

At the beginning of February, the new early music festival started in Berlin-Spandau: SPAM – Spandau Macht Alte Musik gathers top-class early music ensembles and soloists in the historic Zitadelle and the Nikolaikirche for a festival of diversity. Spirited dance movements, humorous programme music works and excerpts from carnival operas through to sacred motets and motets and moving Passion settings from the Middle Ages, Renaissance and Baroque.

On Friday evening, harpsichordist Elina Albach and CONTINUUM present their version of the St. John Passion for three musicians (harpsichord, tenor and percussion) – a “Sensational Good Friday Experience 2020!!!!!”, as kultura extra found.

The following evening, the Phantasm Viol Consort and tenor Nicholas Mulroy perform their programme Of Despair and Love – Music by William Byrd and Michael East.

Friday, 24 February 2023, St. Nikolai Church Spandau
St. John Passion in Trio
Elina Albach, harpsichord and organ / Benedikt Kristjánsson, tenor / Philipp Lamprecht, percussion

Saturday, 25 February 2023, Spandau Citadel, Italian Courts
Of Despair and Love
With works by William Byrd and Michael East
Nicholas Mulroy, tenor

For almost 40 years, the orchestra founded by Giovanni Antonini has been one of the leading international original-sound ensembles, delighting audiences, the press and renowned soloists all over the world with ever new ideas for well-known and lesser-known works of the Baroque and (early) Classical periods. The select circle of artistic partners includes exceptional artists such as violinists Patricia Kopatchinskaja and Isabelle Faust, pianist Fazil Say, mandolin prodigy Avi Avital, soprano Anna Prohaska or cellist Sol Gabetta – to name just a few of the most important.

In March and April 2023, the ensemble will be on tour with different programmes in Europe and Korea – again accompanied by outstanding musicians: with soprano Fatma Said, it will be guest at Hamburg’s Elbphilharmonie and Konzerthaus Berlin, and with Kristian Bezuidenhout and the Labèque sisters it will travel from Dijon to Baden-Baden before presenting arias from the Baroque at the Tongyeong International Music Festival in South Korea with the American-South Korean countertenor Kangmin Justin Kim.

Monday, 6 March 2023, Konzerthaus Berlin
Tuesday, 7 March 2023, Elbphilharmonie Hamburg
With works by Vivaldi, Monteverdi, Castello, Locatelli and Haydn

Fatma Said, soprano

Saturday, 11 March 2023, Opéra Dijon
Sunday, 12 March 2023, Festspielhaus Baden-Baden
Monday, 13 March 2023, Philharmonie de Paris
J. M. Kraus: Overture from the opera “Olympia”
W. A. Mozart: Piano Concerto No. 9 in E flat major KV 271 “Jenamy” (Jeunehomme)
W. A. Mozart: Concerto No. 10 in E flat major for two fortepianos and orchestra KV 365
W. A. Mozart: Concerto for 3 pianos in F major KV 242

Katia and Marielle Labèque, fortepiano / Kristian Bezuidenhout, fortepiano

Friday, 07 April 2023, Tongyeong International Music Festival
With works by Antonio Vivaldi, Isang Yun and others

Saturday, 08 April 2023, Tongyeong International Music Festival
With overtures and arias by Georg Friedrich Handel and other baroque composers

Kangmin Justin Kim, countertenor

From Despair to Bliss, Bach’s piano work for viola and a world premiere – PHANTASM has a lot planned for the first quarter of the New Year!

On 3 February 2023, the third and final part of the award-winning series “The Well-Tempered Consort”, which the PHANTASM VIOL CONSORT launched in 2020, will be released. The programme, conceived by Laurence Dreyfus (the ensemble’s founder and artistic director) illuminates Bach’s fugues from the “Well-Tempered Clavier”, relates them to other works by the exceptional composer and brings to life the overwhelming diversity of characters, styles and emotions behind the notes. The trailer “Pièce d’orgue”, directed by Ralf Pleger, can be seen on YouTube – the entire film is currently available exclusively on Apple Music, and will soon be available on other platforms.

Two days later, the ensemble will perform at King’s College, Cambridge, with the programme From Despair to Bliss: Consort Music by Michael East and William Lawes in front of the Rubens altarpiece “The Adoration of the Magi”.

At the end of February, PHANTASM can be heard with the tenor Nicholas Mulroy in Berlin-Spandau, in the first edition of the newly founded early music festival SPAM.

PHANTASM will finally present a veritable world premiere in March in Berlin’s Pierre-Boulez-Saal: In The Art of Being Human, music of the 16th and 17th centuries, dance and visual arts are combined in an interdisciplinary performance.

Friday, 3 February 2023, outhere music
Bach: The Well-Tempered Consort – III

Sunday, 5 February 2023, King’s College Chapel
From Despair to Bliss
With works by Michael East and William Lawes
Daniel Hyde, organ

Saturday, 25 February 2023, Spandau Citadel, Italian Courts
Von Verzweiflung und Liebe
With works by William Byrd and Michael East
Nicholas Mulroy, tenor

Thursday 23 & Friday 24 & Saturday 25 March 2023, Pierre Boulez Hall
The Art of Being Human
With works by William Byrd, John Dowland, William Lawes, Henry Purcell and others.
Laurence Dreyfus, treble viol and musical direction / Alexander Polzin, visual concept / Sommer Ulrickson, choreography

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