SPECIAL PROJECTS - ANDREAS RICHTER

The Molyvos International Music Festival (MIMF) was founded in 2015 by the German-Greek pianists Danae and Kiveli Dörken and the young entrepreneur Dimitris Tryfon. Since then, the focus has been on ensuring the high quality of the festival held annually in Lesbos and its year-round musical youth support program “Musical Key”. The aim is to offer classical music on a world-class level for residents and visitors to the island, to promote cross-border cultural cooperation and an intercultural dialogue, as well as to support the development of the region as a cultural center with specially designed mediation and inclusion measures.

MIMF unites young musicians from all over the world and world stars of classical music to exclusive chamber music ensembles. The central venue is the medieval castle of Molyvos, in addition, there will be pre-festival activities with free entrances on the two islands Lesbos and Chios, short special concerts (“Molyvos Musical Moments”) in public places on Molyvos and a moderated children’s concert followed by a meeting between audience and the artist. Every year, the program deals with a topic that reflects the rich Greek culture and puts it in a current context; In 2020, the motto “Odyssey” illuminates the subject of flight and migration. A deeper engagement with it takes place in the context of a public symposium. Since 2018, the Tryfon Arts Residency has been part of the interdisciplinary festival.

The Molyvos International Music Festival (MIMF) 2023 is entitled “Symbiosis”. On the Greek island of Lesbos from 11 to 19 August 2023, Danae and Kiveli Dörken will perform four main concerts (as well as “opening acts”) with selected chamber music colleagues on the theme of the absolute necessity of a new, harmonious and respectful interaction between man and nature.

In addition to Danae and Kiveli Dörken, Antje Weithaas, Kirill Troussov, Tobias Feldmann and Noé Inui (violin), Lech Uszynski and Muriel Razavi (viola), Isang Enders and Benedict Klöckner (cello), David Orlowsky (clarinet) and soprano Danae Kontora will perform.

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–Molyvos Fetival press picture 1

–Molyvos Festival press picture 2

–Molyvos 2020 press picture 3

Aga Khan Music Programme was established by Karim Aga Khan with the aim of supporting outstanding musicians and music teachers in preserving and communicating their musical heritage, developing it in contemporary forms and disseminating it worldwide through concerts and recordings. The programme initiates and implements country-specific action programmes to support the revitalisation and preservation of cultural heritage. Under this premise, special programme series in which outstanding renowned artists present new compositions, improvisations and arrangements of a repertoire strongly inspired by the respective tradition are developed, among other things. The programmes always represent artistic encounters between time-honoured traditions and contemporary forms, as a new generation of top-class musicians further develops and varies old musical traditions. The encounter of different cultures thus gives rise to a unique musical creativity.

The Aga Khan Music Programme strives with top-class musicians from the Near and Far East, Africa and the countries of the former Soviet Union to preserve the rich and varied heritage of classical music traditions from around the world and introduce them in Europe. From 15th to 17th February 2019, the Aga Khan Music Programme visited Germany for the first time, presenting the multi-faceted classical music of the Silk Road in four concerts at the Konzerthaus Dortmund, including a school concert. Renowned musicians, such as the Chinese pipa player Wu Ma, the Syrian composer and musician Basel Rajoub or Dutar and tanbur player Sirojiddin Juraev, combined music traditions of their countries with improvisation and borrowings from the Western jazz tradition in their performances. The multimedia concert Qyrq Qyz – Forty Girls reflected both musically and figuratively a centuries-old saga of Central Asia that could possibly change the Western view of women’s images of the East.

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PRESS

„Es ist nachhaltig beeindruckend zu sehen, welch schwindelerregend intellektuelle Leistungen klassischen Musikern in der Türkei, in Thailand und Java abverlangt werden.”

Michael Church, Old and New Music from the Ends of the Silk Route, 2016, 2

„Ein musikalisch hoch eindrucksvoller Abend, nicht zuletzt, um sich über das Fremde im Anderen und im eigenen Wesen klarzuwerden”

Eva-Maria Reuther im Volksfreund, 12.08.2019