Liszt Celebration Concert

For the very first time Daniel Barenboim tackled Franz Liszt’s two highly virtuosic piano concertos in a single concert. With Pierre Boulez, his friend and esteemed colleague of many years, conducting Barenboim’s own orchestra, the Staatskapelle Berlin, they were showered with praise on their tour across Europe. For both musicians, Liszt was one of the most important pioneers of modern music, as composer, conductor and pianist. He influenced revolutionary contemporaries such as Robert Schumann and Richard Wagner. Two examples of the latter’s magnificent orchestral work round off this concert programme celebrating Liszt’s bicentenary.

Lucerne Festival: Simon Rattle conducts Britten and Bruckner

Another late summer highlight at Lucerne Festival: Simon Rattle and the Berliner Philharmoniker presenting works by Benjamin Britten and Anton Bruckner. Britten gethered eight musical-poetic night pieces together under the title ‘Nocturne’: Musical settings of English poets throughout the centuries perfomed by tenor Ian Bostridge. This cycle of orchestral songs is coupled with Bruckner’s ‘Swan Song,’ his last symphony, which was unfinished and which he dedicated to ‘Dear God’ – Symphony No. 9 in D minor.

Lucerne Festival: Abbado conducts Bruckner 5

‘Abbado’s approach to the music of Bruckner is soft and songlike, at times tense and urgent, but constantly filles with warmth of feeling (…)’ wrot critic Peter Hagmann in the ‘Neue Züricher Zeitung’. On 19 August 2011 Claudio Abbado and the Lucerne Festival Orchestra presented Anton Bruckner’s Symphony No. 5 and did credit to this review. The handpicked players of the orchestra filled the famous concert hall in the Culture and Convention Centre Lucerne with impressive and unforgettable sounds.

Mariss Jansons conducts Bruckner 4

In many ways, Haydn and Bruckner are polar opposites. Haydn was a natural talent, while Bruckner was a late bloomer; Haydn was a self-assured professional who wrote music for weddings and parties just as easily as he did for great noblemen, while Bruckner plodded along laboriously, often plagued by feelings of insecurity. Both produced outstanding music, however, as evidenced by Haydn’s energetic, sunny Cello Concerto, performed here by the leading Norwegian cellist Truls Mørk, and by Bruckner’s most well-balanced symphony, the ‘Romantic’. —— Program: Joseph HAYDN – Cello Concerto, Anton BRUCKNER – Symphony No.4 (‘Romantic’)

Kinshasa Symphony

Two hundred orchestral musicians are playing Orff’s “Carmina Burana” in total darkness. A power cut has hit the Ngiri Ngiri district of Kinshasa, only a few bars before the last section of the work. Kinshasa’s power stations and main networks are insufficient to supply electricity to all the 8 million inhabitants of what is Africa’s third-largest city. Once again the lights have gone out in the “Salle des fêtes”, a kind of open garage where the orchestra practises. But for its members this is no reason to stop rehearsing. Most of them know their parts by heart. Small lapses of memory are compensated for by a talent for improvisation and the grace of God.

Pavarotti: The duets – The Best of Pavarotti and Friends

PAVAROTTI annually hosted the ‘Pavarotti and Friends’ charity concerts in his home town of Modena in Italy, joining with singers from all parts of the music industry, including Eric Clapton, Elton John, Sting, Bono, Andrea Bocelli, Sheryl Crow, Celine Dion and Jon Bon Jovi, to raise money for several UN causes. Concerts were held for War Child, and victims of war and civil unrest in Bosnia, Guatemala, Kosovo, and Iraq. This 70 min. special ‘The Duets’ presents the most emotional and world-famous pieces of the entire ‘Pavarotti and Friends’ series: BRYAN ADAMS ‘O Sole Mio, ANDREA BOCELLI Notte ‘e piscatore, BON JOVI Let It Rain, BONO/THE EDGE/BRIAN ENO Miss Sarajevo, JAMES BROWN It’s A Man’s World, MARIAH CAREY Hero, ERIC CLAPTON Holy Mother, SHERYL CROW Là ci darem la mano, CELINE DION I Hate You When I Love You, EURYTHMICS There Must Be An Angel, ELTON JOHN Live Like Horses, LIONEL RICHIE The Magic Of Love, STING Paris Angelicus, ZUCCHERO Miserere.

Jochen Kuhn – Painting in Motion (A Collection of 9 Short Films)

When Jochen Kuhn – Director, author, spokesman and composer – erased and repainted his paintings through outstanding metamorphoses, something new arose were we witness an associative-creative process. It is a rare privilege to see the development of a changing mind of an artist. This film is an invitation to join the playful and creative journey of stories and paintings. Not to fade into finality but to flow with the story. This film is approachable because of ist delicate sense of humour and human friendly irony. For example when Kuhn literally drew a love story at a bus stop were pope Erich Honecker decreases a confession or Angela Merkel goes on a blind date were she is very cuddly. However Jochen Kuhn’s worlds of cheerful melancholy are also mysterious, metaphoric and sometimes reminding of Franz Kafka’s stories, but in the end does not everything seems like dreaming?

Kulturpalast Dresden: Festive Re-Opening 2017

One of Dresden’s most important concert halls was reopened with a concert performed by Festspielorchester Dresden after a three-and-a-half-year hiatus for the hall’s reconstruction. Following this reconstruction, the landmarked Kulturpalast, located in the heart of Dresden, offers optimal spatial and acoustic conditions for the first time in its nearly 150-year history. The concert of the Festspielorchester Dresden under the direction of Ivor Bolton featured works by Weber, Beethoven, and Schumann; the soloists were Nicola Benedetti, Alexander Melnikov, and Jan Vogler.

A Concert for New York – 9/11 Memorial Concert

The concert presents Mahler’s Symphony No. 2 featuring soprano Dorothea Röschmann, mezzo-soprano Michelle DeYoung and the New York Choral Artists. The New York Philharmonic will be conducted by its Music Director Alan Gilbert. Commemorating the tenth anniversary of the events of 9/11, the New York Philharmonic strives to truly give a concert to the city of New York. Programming Mahler’s 2nd the orchestra seeks to set a sign of hope, since this work is often referred to as the ‘Resurrection’ Symphony. ‘Mahler’s Second Symphony, ‘Resurrection’, powerfully and profoundly explores the range of emotions provoked by the memories of 9/11,’ said Music Director Alan Gilbert. ‘This great masterpiece has a very special place in the history and psyche of the New York Philharmonic, but its message of renewal and rebirth is universal. We offer it as a tribute to those lost ten years ago.