ConcertPulse
They play with technical brilliance, enjoy pushing extremes and dare to break out in ways that can sometimes push a hall's acoustics to their limits: The Bamberg Symphony Orchestra, which, with its enchantingly warm and darkly glowing sound, is without doubt one of the best orchestras in Europe. Since 2004, the orchestra has organised the international "Mahler Competition" every three years - a very special conducting competition that also attracts great international attention. Winning the competition means embarking on a successful career as a conductor, which is why it will be exciting once again in mid-July 2023. Young conductors between 18 and 35 years of age from all over the world will then once again be guests in Bamberg to face worldwide competition in preliminary rounds, main round, semifinals and finals. Which of them will be crowned the next classical star of the scene is still completely open at this point. The secret will only be revealed on 15 July, when the winner conducts the grand final concert. The lucky winner can be heard the very next day in the Ingolstadt Festival Hall conducting the Bamberg Symphony Orchestra - together with star guest Thomas Hampson, who has one of the most beautiful baritone voices of our time: It is rare to find such a balanced timbre combined with such flawless vocal technique, even among the very greats of their field. Hampson, who for decades has been one of the most sought-after artists worldwide in opera, operetta, musical, oratorio and lied, devotes himself to Alban Berg's Seven Early Songs, a highly atmospheric music that sounds like fin de siècle and Viennese Jugendstil. Gustav Mahler's Seventh Symphony has a similar tone, even if it hints at a rather dark world view. This is already indicated by the names of the middle movements, for it was not by chance that Mahler called them "night musics": endangered idylls in which the homely and the eerie enter into an eerily beautiful combination. The evening opens with Joseph Haydn's "Oxford Symphony", music that is literally stretched to bursting point, with a dramatically charged atmosphere that has lost none of its thrilling effect to this day.