For the Summer Nights Gala world stars assemble under the night sky on Grafenegg’s “Wolkenturm” (“cloud-tower”) stage, the futuristic stage design that has become a symbol of the Festival. Bass-baritone Bryn Terfel and soprano Olga Peretyatko present works by Gounod, Bizet, Verdi, Donizetti and Lehár, pianist Rudolf Buchbinder plays Weber’s Concert Piece in F minor. The gala conclude with a firework display to Elgar’s Pomp and Circumstance in front of the beautiful backdrop of the idyllic castle grounds. “A triumph for Peretyatko, Terfel and Buchbinder!” (Kronenzeitung) “A feast of great voices and uppermost piano-art.” (Kurier)
Grafenegg: Anniversary Gala 2016: Beethoven No. 9
The Grafenegg Festival celebrates its 10 years’ anniversary! On this occasion, the Tonkünstler Orchestra, under the baton of Yutaka Sado, is joined by 22 alumni of the European Union Youth Orchestra and accompanied by top soloists Klaus Florian Vogt, René Pape, Camilla Nylund and Elena Zhidkova. The jubilee includes this year’s Composer in Residence Christian Jost’s two commissioned works Fanfare and An die Hoffnung as well as Beethoven’s Overture Coriolan. With Beethoven’s 9th Symphony the evening reaches ist climax. Due to the performance of “the excellent bass René Pape, the fabulous soprano Camilla Nylund and the great mezzo-soprano Elena Zhidkova along with the Wiener Singverein, Beethoven’s 9th Symphony turned out to be simply sensational. Jubilation!” (Kurier)
Salzburg Festival 2016: Missa Salisburgensis
One of the supreme masterworks of Baroque polyphony, the Missa Salisburgensis by composer-violinist Heinrich Ignaz Franz Biber is performed in the Salzburg Cathedral – the very building where it was first heard. Biber’s Mass was specifically designed to exploit the acoustics and architecture of the Cathedral and is here presented in authentic 360° surround sound, bringing into play all four of the Cathedral’s organs. Performed by the renowned Prague-based period ensembles Collegium 1704 and Collegium Vocale 1704 under their founder-director Václav Luks, Biber’s Mass is prefaced by a selection of sacred choral works by Monteverdi, masterpieces that are equally suited to the Italianate splendor of Salzburg’s Cathedral. “An extravagant but joyous enterprise, a real festival event. Long will this spectacular Mass continue to resound in my memory” (Salzburger Nachrichten).
Salzburg Festival 2016: Yuja Wang and the Camerata Salzburg
The Camerata Salzburg, a musical mainstay in the city of Mozart’s birth, joins forces with French conductor Lionel Bringuier, one of the most promising young conductors of his generation, and Yuja Wang, who has established herself as an international sensation and a fixture among the world’s leading orchestras since her debut in 2007, for a concert featuring music of the early 20th century at Salzburg’s Haus für Mozart. PROGRAM: Ravel: Piano Concerto in G major; Gershwin: “Rhapsody in Blue”; Zoltan Kodaly: “Dances of Galanta”; Ravel: “Ma Mere l’oye”
Red Ribbon Celebration Concert 2016 – Orpheus and Eurydice
On the occasion of the Red Ribbon Celebration Concert, Vienna’s famous charity concert for the benefit of HIV and AIDS aid projects, some of the world’s greatest opera stars made their appearance at the venerable Burgtheater. Anna Netrebko, Piotr Bezcala, Juan Diego Flórez and Thomas Hampson took part in this festive concert evening which revolved around the legend of Orpheus and Eurydice. With excerpts from corresponding operas by Claudio Monteverdi and Christoph Willibald Gluck, works by W. A. Mozart and Franz Liszt, the audience is taken on Orpheus’ journey to the underworld, from where he desperately tries to take his love Eurydice back to the world of the living by the help of his singing.
Salzburg Festival: Dudamel conducts Strauss
Richard Strauss year 2014 at Salzburg Festival: Gustavo Dudamel, winner of the Leonard Bernstein Award 2014, conducts the Vienna Philharmonic. On the program Strauss’ tone poems “Tod & Verklärung” and “Also sprach Zarathustra”. The evening is rounded up with a work by René Staar, who is also one of the Philharmonic’s violinists.
Beethoven – The complete Sonatas for Piano
Beethoven’s opus of 32 piano sonatas, known as “the New Testament of piano music”, is a landmark in piano literature. Spanning Beethoven’s entire life, the sonatas reflect his whole development as a human being and a musician, moving from one century into the next, from one epoch in music in to another. Now, for the first time in its history the complete cycle was performed at the Salzburg Festival. For this challenge the Festival asked no less than the world-renowned and influential Beethoven expert and pianist Rudolf Buchbinder. Buchbinder’s performance is “that of a real master, effortless changing between lightning fast, technically challenging moments and tender lyrical passages. Where others can pride themselves in getting through without any accidents, Buchbinder is a poet, precise in every arpeggio touching in every keystroke” (Kurier).
Grafenegg: MIDSUMMER NIGHT’S GALA 2014
Home of the world’s best orchestras, singers and musicians – this is Grafenegg Festival. Set in the gorgeous wine-country landscape of Lower Austria near Vienna, the historic castle and its beautiful gardens invite the audience to a spectacle of classical music inspired by nature. The concert is performed in the “cloud tower”, the spectacular modern open-air-stage, with its breathtaking acoustics.
Hollywood in Vienna – A Tribute to Randy Newman
The legendary Film Music Gala from the Wiener Konzerthaus with the Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra , in 2014 was dedicated to Randy Newman. The program contains favourite film music from War of the Roses to The Simpsons, from Sabrina to Life of Brian, Pink Panther, The Artist, Mr. Bean, Love … actually, and several Randy Newman song medleys.
András Schiff conducts Beethoven, Schubert and Mozart
The programme opens with Beethoven’s First Piano Concerto: “Sensitively supported by the rich and supple tone of the strings, Schiff’s pianistic virtuosity explores the length and breadth of Beethoven’s early work”, was the admiring verdict of the Salzburg press. Schiff again succeeds in Schubert’s Symphony No. 5 “from the first note to the last in creating a sound world that flooded the mind’s eye with images” (Drehpunkt Kultur). The climax of the concert is the Mozart Piano Concerto No. 23. “Schiff here demonstrates his skill in pianistic interpretation and in conducting, nuanced, passionate, a sensitive revelation”, enthused the press.