Classical concerts featuring

Christoph Sietzen

Sào Soulez Larivière, viola

Experience the most exciting young personalities of the classical music world for a whole week – the Rising Stars Festival makes this possible. Chosen from the most famous concert halls in Europe, six excellent young musicians use the Elbphilharmonie Recital Hall to give the Hamburg audience sonic samples of their star potential. The festival kicks off with the Franco-Dutch violist Sào Soulez Larivière, whom the Elbphilharmonie itself nominated as its personal Rising Star for the 2024/25 season and who was already a guest in the »Teatime Classics« series. Larivière builds his programme around an equally rare and fascinating combination: the sonorous sound of the viola impacts on the kaleidoscope of sound of the percussion. The violist gets support from drummer and former Rising Star Christoph Sietzen – and this extraordinary line-up naturally does not offer standard repertoire, but a programme selection full of surprises and discoveries, which Larivière presents as a young artist with an open mind and mature personality.

ECLAT Festival Neue Musik Stuttgart

SWR Symphonieorchester / Florian Hölscher / Christoph Sietzen / Emilio Pomàrico

The semblance of a world premiere: The SWR Symphonieorchester under the baton of Emilio Pomàrico together with pianist Florian Hölscher launches the new piano concerto by Alberto Posadas – you can hear this work in Hamburg shortly after its premiere in Madrid. The Spanish composer draws his musical material from the physical and sensory capabilities of the instruments themselves – as does Johannes Maria Staud, whose percussion concerto can be experienced as a rhythmical counterpoint in the second half of the programme. It is a special concern of the Austrian composer to establish the drum as the equivalent tool of the sound paintbox: »It is my objective to give real meaning to this toolkit in the 21st century and to complete a lot of works for it.« No sooner said than done! Sometimes, you hear it with saxophone and wind ensemble, sometimes with choir and string quartet – with orchestra for the first time in »Whereas the Reality Trembles«, which was premiered in 2023 by Luxemburg percussionist Christoph Sietzen. For the title, Staud was inspired by a line by the American poet William Carlos Williams, which hits precisely what he expects from a percussion concerto: »Williams often speaks about reality being a little dazzling; his work is very obsessed with the space between the sensations.«