In 2016, Hollywood in Vienna invited to an unforgettable musical journey through space and time and honoured the Hollywood composer, Oscar-, Golden Globe and Grammy Award winner Alexandre Desplat. First, A Space Odyssey leads us to outer space. We enter the infamous, global Star Wars and are rescued by Star Trek’s spaceship “Enterprise” before Gravity pulls us back to earth and, finally, we fulfill E.T.’s wish, to phone home. In the second part, Desplat’s atmospheric melodies for Harry Potter, Twilight, The King’s Speech and The Grand Budapest Hotel let us virtually float through the universe. Featuring star singers from various musical genres – Verdi soprano Kristin Lewis, singersongwriter Katerine Ellis and pop star Grace Capristo – “standing ovations were preprogrammed” (Kronenzeitung).
Salzburg Festival 2017: Lorenzo Viotti conducts Beethoven and Schumann
Hailed as one of the most talented conductors of his generation, Lorenzo Viotti returns to the Salzburg Festival, which proved to be a stepping stone for the young Swiss: After he won the festival’s “Young Conductors Award”, leading the renowned Camerata Salzburg, he took the classical world by storm. Reunited with the Camerata, Viotti is joined by Sergey Khachatryan in the picturesque Großer Saal of the Stiftung Mozarteum. In their “debut of the young and wild” (ARD), they rise to the challenge that is Beethoven’s Violin Concerto: After all, Beethoven’s work was deemed too difficult whilst not being virtuosic enough when it premiered in 1806. Khachatryan demonstrates his extensive skills, producing “celestially delicate sounds” (drehpunktkultur.at). Viotti’s treatment of the “Renish”, Robert Schumann’s Third Symphony, is “youthful and brisk” (Kronenzeitung). PROGRAM Beethoven: Violin Concerto; Schumann: Symphony No. 3
Hollywood in Vienna – A Tribute to Danny Elfman
Hollywood in Vienna enters the realm of mythical creatures and fairy tales and honours Hollywood composer, Grammy Award Winner and four-time-Oscar-nominee Danny Elfman. The ORF Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra under the baton of James Shearman discover with Beauty that there’s an enchanted prince hiding within the fearsome Beast, explore the mysterious world to which the wardrobe in “The Chronicles of Narnia” leads to and accompany the brave “Mulan” on her adventurous journey through medieval China. Star singers Nathan Trent and Louise Dearman shine in “La La Land”, while Insingizi & Friends sweep the audience in the Vienna Concert hall away with their “Lion King” medley. In the second part, conductor John Mauceri and the orchestra perform the highlights from Danny Elfman’s impressive back catalogue such as “The Nightmare before Christmas”, “The Simpsons” and “Batman”.
Muti conducts Brahms and Tchaikovsky – with Anne-Sophie Mutter
One thing you can rely on is the Salzburg Festival always offering compelling couplings of artistic personalities: in this case star violinist Anne-Sophie Mutter and Maestro Riccardo Muti. Exactly 30 years to the day since Mutter first performed Tchaikovsky’s Violin Concerto at the festival, Tchaikovsky’s masterpiece is back on the programme. Mutter’s playing is stupendous, she succeeds in a way that draws astonishment. In Brahms’s Symphony No. 2, the veteran conductor Muti “lets the string and wind groups demonstrate in exemplary manner how it can sound when all the musicians are in perfect harmony with one another.” (Salzburger Nachrichten)
Hollywood in Vienna – A Tribute to James Newton Howard
“Hollywood in Vienna” is an annual symphonic gala concert celebrating classic and current masterpieces of film music and honouring each year one of today’s leading film music composer. In the first part of this edition of the concert, the ORF Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra under the baton of Keith Lockhart takes you away on a magical mystery tour, full of eerily-beauty and musical delight. From the eccentric Addams Family in their Victorian Mansion, to the fabulous world of Alice in Wonderland the program, true to ist motto “Tales of mystery”, sets out for mysterious places and wondrous tales. The second part of the concert is dedicated to James Newton Howard, multi-award winning composer of film scores such as “Batman Begins”, “Pretty Woman”, and “The Hunger Games”. The Press raved: “Goosebumps, tears and standing ovations!” (Kurier)
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”
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.
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.
Minkowski conducts Mozart and Schubert
The Salzburg Mozart Week – arranged by the Mozarteum foundation, the trustees of Mozart’s musical legacy – is always offering something unique: under the direction of the principal conductor and artistic director of the Salzburg Mozart Week, Mark Minkowski, the Musiciens du Louvre perform on not one but two of Mozart’s original instruments! Mozart’s Violin Concerto and his Piano Concerto in A major are played on instruments that were once in the composer’s possession. In Franz Schubert’s Great C major Symphony, the culmination of this wonderful evening, ”Minkowski and the Musiciens du Louvre are entirely in their element” (Wiener Zeitung).