BACK HOME in Georgia – Khatia Buniatishvili and Zubin Mehta

They have known each for a long time and performed many concerts together: the pianist Khatia Buniatishvili and the conductor Zubin Mehta. Perhaps that is why they can be so open with each other during rehearsals of Robert Schumann’s Piano Concerto in A-Minor. Back Home with the two musicians and the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra in Georgia under special conditions. The rehearsals in Tbilisi, capital of Georgia, take place in the great music hall. The concert two hours drive away under the open skies of Tsinandali – a brand new concert place, built up to the very last minute.

2Cellos – 2Faces

Cellists Luka Šulic from Slovenia and Stjepan Hauser from Croatia have been a great success all over the world. Their You Tube views, concert attendance in the largest arenas of the world and album sales have surged to record figures. They are known as top classical musicians with academic degrees and numerous awards from the most prominent international music competitions. Their cello concerts combine classical pieces with amazing pop, rock and film soundtrack covers, attracting enthusiasts from different music worlds. The documentary film takes the viewers below the surface and introduces them to the rich mental, emotional, conscious and subconscious creative world of the two artists – a world so unique, special and peculiar; it cannot be explained; only experienced. With all the fame and overly chaotic schedules, the two artists try to maintain the delicate balance between the glorious world of international success and the personal world of inner peace and solitude.

Jan Lisiecki – Night Music

Night: it can be dreamy or comforting, but sometimes it’s frightening, full of dark secrets. So it’s no great surprise that the long hours of darkness, often spent awake, have inspired so many composers to write some of their most touching works: Chopin’s dreamy Nocturnes, for example, Schumann’s dainty “Nachtstücke” or Ravel’s spine­chilling cycle “Gaspard de la nuit”, populated by sinister figures and dark premonitions. In his piano recital at the Imperial Hall at the Würzburg Residence, the young Canadian pianist Jan Lisiecki, brings the spirits of the night, both good and evil, to life; in his hands, Ravel’s goblin “Scarbo” dances and the water sprite “Ondine” swims through the waves, dangerously seductive.

Music, War and Revolution – Silenced: Composers in Revolutionary Russia

When the First World War broke out in 1914, the musical world did not remain unaffected. Artists inevitably became involved, either as soldiers at the front or as composers of patriotic music or musical memorials to a lost world. The three-part documentary series investigates the (un)known, overt and hidden connections between music, war and revolution. The fates of young rebels such as Arthur Lourié, Nikolai Roslavets, Alexander Mosolov or Leon Theremin reveal much about the once hopeful and tragic entanglement with art and politics to which so many artists fell victim during the First World War, the October Revolution and the early Soviet Union’s cultural life. “Silenced”, the 2nd part rediscovers the long-banished and forgotten Russian composers of the early twentieth century who flirted with futurism, wrote the first twelve-tone chord of musical history or invented the first electronic musical instrument. “Silenced” sheds light upon their tragic stories and their exceptional music. Musicologists, composers, descendants, and musicians illuminate the composers’ fates from their perspective and establish both cultural references as well as the historical and political context.

Music, War and Revolution – Power and Music

When the First World War broke out in 1914, the musical world did not remain unaffected. Artists inevitably became involved, either as soldiers at the front or as composers of patriotic music or musical memorials to a lost world. The three-part documentary series investigates the (un)known, overt and hidden connections between music, war and revolution. Beginning with what led to this great human tragedy, each episode addresses different perspectives of the relationship between war and politics. The great seminal catastrophe of 1914 was not merely a historical upheaval for politics and society. Music had also lost ist political innocence. But can music really be political? Already in the 19th century, an increasing number of composers and musicians had started to adopt political agendas and to this day many musicians position themselves politically. Power and Music embarks on a search for the political aspects of music, combining historical examples with the present. The film itself thus deals with various standpoints of music’s political moments and starts a dialogue with renowned artists such as conductor Valery Gergiev, Venezuelan pianist Gabriela Montero or the German-British cellist Anita Lasker-Wallfisch, one of the last survivors of the Women’s Orchestra of Auschwitz.

Gidon Kremer – Finding your own voice

He is a violinist of the century who is a stranger to entertainment. He is an exception in an industry that is aimed currently at market value, marketing and mass appeal: Gidon Kremer is one of the most exciting artist personalities of our time. Gidon Kremer – Finding your own voice is a calm and thoughtful portrait of the great violinist and intellectual. Over the course of one year, Paul Smaczny accompanied Gidon Kremer with the camera, observing him with his Kremerata Baltica Chamber Orchestra in Paris and his native Riga, and as a soloist in Moscow and Tokyo, as well as encountering him as a socially and politically active person. Gidon Kremer – Finding your own voice seeks to find out what drives a person like Gidon Kremer, what lies behind making music, where the deep meaning of music lies hidden. A film about a great intellectual who sees himself as a mediator of values whose ethos is alien to, indeed contrary to, any form of narcissism and profit-seeking.

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?

Andris Nelsons’ Inaugural Concert – Gewandhausorchester Leipzig

A new era in Leipzig has just begun: Andris Nelsons started his tenure as the 21st Gewandhaus conductor. The inaugural concert combined the world premiere of Relief, a new piece by composer Steffen Schleiermacher, with one of the most important premieres in the history of the orchestra. In March 1842, the Gewandhausorchester performed the famous Scottish Symphony by Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy under the direction of the composer himself for the first time. In choosing this repertoire, Andris Nelsons pays tribute to the grand history of the city of Leipzig and its Gewandhausorchester. Alban Berg’s violin concerto, performed by Latvian Baiba Skride, works as a link between the decades. After Andris Nelsons’ first concert as the 21st Gewandhaus Kapellmeister, the Financial Times states: “the new partnership brims with artistic promise.” PROGRAM Schleiermacher: Relief for Orchestra; Berg: Concerto for Violin and Orchestra; Mendelssohn Bartholdy: Symphony No.3

Nelsons conducts Bruckner and Widman

The Gewandhaus season 2017/18 celebrates two momentous occasions: the investiture of Andris Nelsons to the position of the 21st Gewandhauskapellmeister and the 275th anniversary of the Gewandhausorchester’s founding. This festive concert with Bruckner’s Symphony No. 7 and a World Premiere of Jörg Widmann’s Partita promises to become one of the emotional highlights of the festival. PROGRAM Bruckner: Symphony No. 7; Widman: Partita

Nelsons conducts Mozart and Tchaikovsky

This concert is devoted to Andris Nelsons’ assumption of the position of Gewandhauskapellmeister. It marks the beginning of the highly promising Tchaikovsky cycle by Andris Nelsons and the Gewandhausorchester. Andris Nelsons: “Being appointed as the next Gewandhauskapellmeister of the Gewandhausorchester is a completely overwhelming honour. This extraordinary orchestra and its wonderful musicians are unique in so many respects, and particularly in their creation of an exceptional sound world based on outstanding tradition that is, at its heart, inspirational.” PROGRAM Mozart: Symphony K. 550; Tchaikovsky: Symphony No.6