As of: February 22, 2024 5:10 p.m
Venice is gondolas, masks, bridges – and of course music. Musical diversity is the focus of this year’s Schleswig-Holstein Music Festival (SHMF). We can be excited about the portrait artist: “Everything is possible with the saxophone!” says Asya Fateyeva. The start is on July 6th in Lübeck with the NDR Elbphilharmonie Orchestra.
After the music metropolis of London, the focus this year is on the lagoon city of Venice. The songs of the gondoliers, the carnival, the early Baroque choirs in St. Mark’s Basilica, the first public opera house, the famous Ospedale della pietà orphanage with its highly musical students and the Biennale for contemporary music – the cultural heritage of the city of Venice would even last for several festival years.
Venice: From Vivaldi to Verdi to Stravinsky
From the Renaissance to the modern era, outstanding artists have made music and composed there: in the 17th and 18th centuries alone, uncles and nephews Andrea and Giovanni Gabrieli, Claudio Monteverdi, the “Red Priest” Antonio Vivaldi, Tomaso Albinoni, Alessandro Marcello and Barbara Strozzi, one of the few women of her time who were able to make a name for themselves as composers. The castratos Farinelli, Carestini and Bernacchi were celebrated at the Teatro San Benedetto and in the city’s noble houses; later Gioachino Rossini, Vincenzo Bellini and Giuseppe Verdi had their operas premiered at the Teatro La Fenice. A century later, Igor Stravinsky, Sergei Prokofiev and Benjamin Britten presented their latest works at the Biennale.
What is less known is that Venice was the capital of music printing for almost 200 years and preserves a huge trove of music manuscripts in its archives for posterity. Of all things, “Death in Venice” is not a piece of music, but rather the novella by Thomas Mann, which became famous in Luchino Visconti’s film adaptation with the Adagietto from Gustav Mahler’s Fifth Symphony.
The Schleswig-Holstein Music Festival will present all of this and much more in its concerts in summer 2024. The Orchestra del Teatro La Fenice, the Venice Baroque Orchestra and the Solisti Veneti will arrive as Venice’s musical ambassadors; the singers Lea Desandre, Rolando Villazón and Benjamin Appl will bring the opera repertoire to life, while the Chineke! Orchestra, the Venice Vocal Jam ensemble and the Finnish violinist Pekka Kuusisto ensure that musical boundaries are crossed in the best sense.
Further information
Villazón is known to most as an opera singer. The director, writer, cartoonist and presenter celebrated his 50th birthday on Tuesday. more
Portraits 2024: Asya Fateyeva
Saxophonist Asya Fateyeva also stands for this. As the festival’s portrait artist, she will play up to 17 concerts and also organize numerous workshops with young musicians. Born in Ukraine in 1990 and living in Germany, she qualified in two respects. She is particularly looking forward to special Schleswig-Holstein moments: “The stages are very different, the places are different. I love it when nature takes part and you can hear birds chirping or the cows join in. I enjoy these special moments the festival was great.”
The winner of numerous international competitions lives in Hamburg and teaches classical saxophone at the universities there and in Lübeck. She performs as a chamber musician and with orchestras, playing Bach’s Goldberg Variations as well as jazz and world music – true to her motto: “Everything is possible with the saxophone!”. “Asya Fateyeva is a great ambassador for an instrument that is not so much in the focus of classical music. Everyone associates the saxophone with pop music, with jazz,” explains the director of the SHMF, Christian Kuhnt. “She brings this instrument closer to us all with her passion and her skills. That’s really, really great. You can’t imagine a better bridge builder.”
Asya Fateyeva wants to prove that anything is possible with the saxophone at the Schleswig-Holstein Music Festival. Of course, she also brings a lot of musical friends with her. They play the organ, hurdy-gurdy, mandolin, cello, vibraphone or bassoon, and yes: all of this goes well with the saxophone!
VIDEO: Asya Fateyeva plays Alban Berg’s “Night” (5 min)
Project “Singstars!” is intended to inspire the young generation for music
The charm of the lagoon city of Venice, which is the focus this year, should not only determine the SHMF concerts in Schleswig-Holstein, but should also inspire the younger generation, says Christian Kuhnt. In the project “Singstars!” For example, second graders from primary schools in Pinneberg, Elmshorn and Holm study their own program. The festival director wants to make music an experience for everyone: “We found seven classes. At the end they get a stage as part of the SHMF and can present what they have learned in six months in this workshop. Music brings people together, educates us emotionally and can overcome boundaries. There are children who, for example, don’t have German as their native language. For us it’s very important to show what you can achieve with music.”
There are no musical boundaries at the Schleswig-Holstein Music Festival: the program includes Vivaldi’s “Four Seasons” in a wide variety of variations and interpretations, for example alongside the Caribbean sound of the Renegades Steel Orchestra. Internationally acclaimed artists such as Leonard Bernstein Award winner Lang Lang, English singer-songwriter Jamie Cullum and the American soul band “Kool & the Gang” will perform. “My favorite,” says Kuhnt. “Perhaps the last opportunity to see Robert “Kool” Bell, because he’s not getting any younger.” Top-class musical stars are complemented by performances by Axel Milberg, the literary critic Elke Heidenreich and the former Tagesschau anchor Judith Rakers.
Further information
In the summer of 2023, the Schleswig-Holstein Music Festival placed the music metropolis of London and the violinist Daniel Hope at the center of its program. more
The Bach family dominated the musical life of Central Germany for several generations – and also left their mark in Northern Germany. more
After eight weeks, the SHMF comes to an end on Sunday. There were more than 200 concerts at almost 70 different venues. more
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NDR Culture | 02/22/2024 | 5:20 p.m