Film: My Life as a Courgette

Film: My Life as a Courgette

The film »Ma vie de Courgette« (My Life as a Courgette) about little Icare begins in the dreariness of a failed family. It turns into an impressive story about a child’s ability to create substitute families. It is not least the light-hearted soundtrack by Sophie Hunger that gives the film its life-affirming atmosphere. Swiss animation filmmaker Claude Barras is known for his affectionate characterisation using stop-motion techniques. For »My Life as a Courgette«, he adapted a novel by Gilles Paris; the screenplay was written by French director Céline Sciamma. The orphanage drama about the power of childhood friendship premiered in Cannes in 2016 and was showered with awards. In her soundtrack, Sophie Hunger combines her love of rock music and sound experiments to create an atmospheric framework that perfectly accompanies the film. Sophie Hunger wrote her first film score for »The Friend« by Swiss director Micha Lewinski back in 2008. She has since worked on various soundtracks and was honoured with the »Des Notes et des Toiles« prize at the French festival and the German Television Award.

Music as light as a feather

Paul Hindemith is among the most underrated artists of the 20th century. Anyone who listens to his Kammermusik, op. 24 no. 1, a genuinely sparkling with ideas and light as a feather piece of music, will come to this conclusion. This architect of the cornerstone of historical performance and founding father of the famous Donaueschingen Contemporary Music Festival embodied the dominant ideals of the New Objectivity in German art of the 1920s, namely simplicity of means and communicativeness, in his Chamber Music series. It is a peculiar variety of neo-classicism, unjustly overshadowed by French or Russian music. The third movement in Kammermusik (op. 36 no. 3) is essentially a chamber cello concerto with explicit references to Baroque music. It is not without reason, after all, that this entire series has been compared to Bach's Brandenburg Concertos. Surprisingly similar in its spirit tone, although referring to the classical form and not devoid of stronger emotional accents, is the Sinfonietta of the then-only 18-year-old Benjamin Britten, already heralding his extraordinary talent. Adam SuprynowiczConcert duration: approximately 70 minutes

Guest performance ‟The Soundtrack of My Lifeˮ

AUKSO / A film fantasy

Film music arranged by Hadrian Filip Tabęcki for piano and string orchestra from films including Frantic, Pirates of the Caribbean, Gone with the Wind, Underground, Ladies, Gladiator, Star Wars, Ghost in the Shell, Colonel Wolodyjowski, Brute, and many others.Have you ever wondered where the phenomenon of film music concerts came from? Or is enjoying melodies that we associate with pictures and action nothing new? The music of the Baroque or Romantic periods is full of representations of the stories, legends and myths that society lived by at the time. When we find symbols familiar from epic stories or passionate romances in the music, the emotions we experienced when we followed the story for the first time return. Film music offers us a mind-boggling kaleidoscope of sensations in this regard. At the October concert, we will be presented with the best of the last eight decades of the genre. All this in an excellent performance by AUKSO musicians under the conductorship of Marek Moś and with guest appearances by composer and arranger Hadrian Filip Tabęcki and vocalist Anna Ozner. Szymon Maliszewski Concert duration: approximately 90 minutes

NOSPR / Alsop / Requiem as a tribute

“It is with greatest ease and willingness that I am working on this Concerto and, nota bene, I feel that this is going to be a first-class trick” – these words from a letter by Karol Szymanowski are proof of how important the Symphony No. 4 was for the composer. It was his unfulfilled dream of a “true” piano concerto. One of a pianistic tour de force, the first sketches of which he dropped to focus on the Stabat Mater he was working on back then. The moving „Peasant Requiem” (such was the title Szymanowski had originally intended for the work), born out of the pain he experienced after his niece’s death, it brings together religious ecstasy and a note of the Polish folklore to be heard in a recollection of the popular Bitter Lamentations resonating in the composer’s memory.How different was that world from the instrumental Chaconne by Krzysztof Penderecki! The latter is an expressive musical tribute to the memory of the late Polish Pope. It was this piece that provided a symbolic closure for the Polish Requiem, which Penderecki had been working on for a quarter of a century – a monumental chronicle of Poland’s modern history, the melancholic finale of which contains both a nostalgia for the baroque tradition and emotions of a surprisingly romantic nature.Róża ŚwiatczyńskaConcert duration (intermission included): approximately 90 minutes

Harri Stojka – A Song for My Daddy

He is probably one of the most famous jazz musicians in Austria: Guitarist Harri Stojka has stood on the familiar festival and concert stages since the 1970s and has worked with many musical greats from John McLaughlin and Carlos Santana to Van Morrison and Herbert Grönemeyer. Despite his unique style varying between jazz, rock, punk and world music, he has always remained true to his musical and familial Roma roots as well as gypsy jazz. André Heller presents the guitar legend as part of his »Reflektor« festival with a very personal and historically important project. Stojka’s father, Johann »Mongo« Stojka, was one of the few family members to survive the genocide of the Sinti and Roma by the Nazis, known as the Porajmos. As a 13-year old in the Buchenwald concentration camp, he wrote a little book with poems and drawings, which lay in various archives for eight decades, then reached the Holocaust Galleries of the Imperial War Museum in London. It was only there that it was attributed to Stojka – a minor sensation for the family. The Austrian musician and journalist Robert Rotifer (FM4, Ö1, Deutschlandfunk Kultur, Rolling Stone) was there in January 2024 when Stojka saw the original copy of his father’s childhood creation for the first time. On the stage of the Elbphilharmonie, the two of them discuss the moving story of this remarkable discovery. Following this, Harri Stojka together with Claudius Jelinek will, in a furious acoustic guitar set, celebrate the immortality and vital courage of Romani culture in the face of discrimination and genocide in his favourite way – with the guitar under his agile fingers. Please note: This event takes place in German.

My Melodies

Helmut Lachenmann's music for eight horns seeks new ways of listening, not new sounds. Christian Mason's composition sees the orchestra as a giant resonating instrument. In between, Lachenmann's first major piano work. Lachenmann's "My Melodies" goes beyond the classical soloist and any notion of melody. He aims to make perception tangible through unconventional use of familiar instruments and tones. The hr-Sinfonieorchester, along with two Lachenmann experts, perform this extraordinary concert.

Plácido Domingo und die Bremer Philharmoniker – My Life for Music

World-renowned Spanish tenor and baritone Plácido Domingo will perform a special gala concert, "My Life for Music," on June 28, 2025, at the Seebühne Bremen. The concert celebrates the 200th anniversary of the Bremer Philharmoniker and will feature a retrospective of Domingo's career, accompanied by a soprano and the Bremer Philharmoniker. Domingo's career began in the 1960s, and he has performed in major opera houses worldwide, receiving numerous awards. He has also conducted at major opera houses and served as director of the Washington National Opera and Los Angeles Opera.

My Leonard Cohen

After sold-out shows at the Sydney Opera House and the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, Stewart D’Arrietta and his band are now coming back to Germany to celebrate the music, poems and stories of the legendary singer-songwriter Leonard Cohen. With his emotional lyrics and melancholy voice, one of the most influential artists of our time has inspired an audience of millions.

My Bloody Valentine

From a recital by an Aphrodite on the eve of Valentine’s Day, one might expect a classic ode to romantic love, but singer Aphrodite Patoulidou has something else in mind.