Sarah Willis & The Sarahbanda

Sarah Christian Antonio Vivaldi

Birdsong, trickling streams, rainy weather, barking dogs, and frozen landscapes. These are just some of the natural phenomena Antonio Vivaldi (1678-1741) describes in the violin concertos The Four Seasons, first published in 1725.Antonio Vivaldi was born in Venice and spent most of his life there. He was a renowned music teacher, opera composer, and, not least, one of the best violinists of his time. He wrote several hundred concertos, over 200 of which were for his own instrument.The Four Seasons was released along four poems telling what the concertos describe. Spring is characterized by birdsong, flowering meadows and happy spring dancing. Summer opens with more bids - not least the cuckoo - and oppressive heat followed by thunderstorms. Autumn begins with the farmers celebrating the harvest with song and dance before hunting in the third movement. Winter opens with an icy wind, and then it’s cozy in front of the fireplace while it is raining in the second movement. In the final movement, we end up on the ice.The Four Seasons was Vivaldi’s greatest success. Gradually, his popularity declined, and after his death, his music was little played. Interest flourished in the 20th century, and since the Second World War, The Four Seasons has been among the most popular classical music.

Sarah Christian Antonio Vivaldi

Birdsong, trickling streams, rainy weather, barking dogs, and frozen landscapes. These are just some of the natural phenomena Antonio Vivaldi (1678-1741) describes in the violin concertos The Four Seasons, first published in 1725.Antonio Vivaldi was born in Venice and spent most of his life there. He was a renowned music teacher, opera composer, and, not least, one of the best violinists of his time. He wrote several hundred concertos, over 200 of which were for his own instrument.The Four Seasons was released along four poems telling what the concertos describe. Spring is characterized by birdsong, flowering meadows and happy spring dancing. Summer opens with more bids - not least the cuckoo - and oppressive heat followed by thunderstorms. Autumn begins with the farmers celebrating the harvest with song and dance before hunting in the third movement. Winter opens with an icy wind, and then it’s cozy in front of the fireplace while it is raining in the second movement. In the final movement, we end up on the ice.The Four Seasons was Vivaldi’s greatest success. Gradually, his popularity declined, and after his death, his music was little played. Interest flourished in the 20th century, and since the Second World War, The Four Seasons has been among the most popular classical music.

Sarah Wegener | Götz Payer

According to Theodor Fontane, happiness lies in small things, which could also describe songs. Soprano Sarah Wegener explores this happiness in her Cologne concert. She performs songs like Richard Strauss's "Traum durch die Dämmerung," which questions where happiness lies. Wegener, known for her intense performances, joins pianist Götz Payer in this pursuit of happiness.

Lied concert with Sarah Connolly

The highly acclaimed English mezzo-soprano Sarah Connolly has held the title of Dame Sarah since 2017. Her opera career has been long and successful, spanning from the Baroque to contemporary repertoire. Among the many celebrated productions she has been involved in are Mozart's Titus at the English National Opera, Purcell's Dido and Aeneas at La Scala in Milan, and Richard Strauss's Ariadne auf Naxos at the Metropolitan Opera in New York.Alongside her opera career worldwide, art song has always been a central part of her artistry. Here we hear her in songs that truly showcase her versatility, by composers including Robert Schumann, Gustav Mahler, Barber, Eisler, and Britten.Magnus Svensson is the artistic director of the lied concert series. Alongside concert activities in the Nordic countries and the rest of Europe, he has also performed in Russia and the USA. Since 2012, he has also worked at the Royal Swedish Academy of Music on the re-publishing of older Swedish music.

THE NECKS

Over the course of 37 years, The Necks have released 18 albums of music that defies description: not entirely avant-garde, nor minimalist, nor ambient, nor jazz, and yet all of these, and more. The band’s extended improvisations, frequently underpinned by an insistent groove, have a deceptive simplicity that masks the music’s deep layers, leading the Los Angeles Times to call the group “a magic act masquerading as a piano trio.” The Necks make their Pierre Boulez Saal debut with a career-spanning program of classics and recent pieces.

Haydn-Orchester / Sarah Christian / Rida Murtada

The Haydn-Orchester Hamburg is regarded as one of northern Germany’s top amateur orchestras. Founded in 1977, Rida Murtada has occupied the position of musical director since 2003. The orchestra performs biannually at the Laeiszhalle.

Sarah Louvion, flûte & Delphine Bardin, piano

World Sona Jobarteh – The magic of the African harp

Sona Jobarteh is the first professional female kora player to have conquered a previously male domain. She comes from a family of Gambian musicians with a long tradition of playing the kora, a 21-stringed West African bridge harp. Until now, women were only allowed to sing to the sounds of the kora – Sona Jobarteh combines both in her meditative music-making. Born and raised in London, she studied both classical music and traditional African music. Sona Jobarteh shows us how well tradition and innovation can complement one another.

World The magic of the sitar with Anoushka Shankar

Mystical, spiritual, enrapturing – when Anoushka Shankar picks up the strings of her sitar, she opens up a musical world all of her own. The daughter legendary musician Ravi Shankar, she was introduced to the language of classical Indian music by her father at an early age. Today, the artist, who performed as a soloist with the Berliner Philharmoniker in 2017, transports her father’s legacy around the world. At the same time, she and her ensemble combine the traditional music of her country with her own personal, contemporary perspective.

The Naghash Ensemble Armenia

The Naghash Ensemble blends the deeply rooted spirituality of Armenian folk music with new classical, post-minimal and infectious energy. Three female classical singers and four virtuosic instrumentalists on the duduk, oud, dhol and piano play music based on the words of the medieval poet and Christian priest Mkrtich Naghash. Naghash was a 15th-century painter, poet and priest who sought to promote inter-religious dialogue. He initially lived on the shores of Lake Van in what is today Turkey, but later moved to Constantinople (Istanbul today) because of religious conflict. There, he processed his experiences of exile in poems that explore the themes of displacement, foreignness and the impossibility of arriving. Subsequent Armenian history is also marked by ethnic and religious suppression, expulsion and violence, culminating in the Ottoman Empire genocide of 1915 in which hundreds of thousands of Armenians were killed or forced into exile. The grandmother of the Armenian-American composer John Hodian, who is a pianist with the Naghash Ensemble, fled to the USA to escape the genocide. No wonder Naghash’s poems moved him so deeply as a symbol of the fate of his people: »The words leapt off the page and into my soul.« Hodian’s »Songs of Exile« are carried by traditional Armenian melodies and rhythms, embodied by the oboe-like duduk, the oud lute and the dhol and dumbek drums. Combined with neo-classical sounds on the piano and the voices of three female singers – who are trained in western classical music as well as Armenian folk music – there emerges a haunting and unique soundscape.