Bayreuth Easter Festival
The Bayreuth Easter Festival is a music festival that takes place annually at Easter at historical locations in Bayreuth in Bavaria. The proceeds from the benefit concerts go to help children with cancer.
history
The founder is Ulrich Schubert , who brought the festival to life in 1994 with the help of August Everding , the Australian conductor Sir Charles Mackerras and Andreas Göldel .
The purpose is to help children with cancer in the region through donations from the proceeds of the benefit concerts, to support young musicians through performances in the margravial opera house and other margravial buildings, and international understanding through making music together.
Since then, the festival has expanded from the symphony concerts of the International Young Orchestra Academy in the Margravial Opera House to the genres of symphony and chamber music, sacred oratorios, organ concerts, jazz and salon orchestra concerts. In 2007, the opera genre with Antonio Salieri's Prima la musica e poi le parole , under the musical direction of Christoph Ulrich Meier , the Tannhauser conductor of the Bayreuth Festival 2007, was staged in a new edition in German in the Margravial Opera House was integrated into the event structure of the festival. In 2008 Iphigenie on Tauris was carried out by Christoph Willibald Gluck as a second opera project. Georg Friedrich Handel's Alcina was performed in 2009.
The Margravial Opera House was the main venue until 2009. The symphony concerts, the festival brass with Bob Ross ( brass damage ) and the opera took place here. Since the reconstruction of the opera house, other margravial buildings in Bayreuth have been used as venues. In 2011 the symphony orchestra played for the first time in the Ordenskirche St. Georgen. There is also passion music in the town and hospital church of Bayreuth, chamber music concerts in the Rococo hall at Steingraeber & Sons, organ concerts in the palace church and jazz and salon orchestra events in Bayreuth.
Ulrich Schubert is the festival director. The administrative headquarters of the International Young Orchestra Academy (IJOA), which supports the Bayreuth Easter Festival , is the Pleystein / Upper Palatinate Music Center . There are also offices in Bayreuth and Jena. Schubert is also the foundation's chairman. Ulrich Jörs is the deputy of the board, and Ehrenfried Lachmann is another board member. In 2007, the foundation set up a board of trustees. The board of trustees brings together personalities from politics, business and public life. Members are Katharina Wagner , Dagmar Wöhrl , Peter Hahne , Claus Hipp , Markus Söder and Thomas Hacker .
In addition to the Bayreuth Easter Festival and the Northern Upper Palatinate Easter Festival , the International Young Orchestra Academy Foundation also organizes guest performances in Selb and Jena .
From 2004 to 2011, Miguel Gómez Martínez was the conductor of the symphony orchestra. In 2010 and 2012 Bob Ross (Blechschaden) conducted the Brass Festival. In 2013 Matthias Foremny took over the direction. In 2014 and 2015, Simon Gaudenz was conductor. Another pedagogical pillar in the structure of the Foundation for the Promotion of Young Musicians are the International Masterclasses, in which there are targeted shortage of instrumentalists from the Orchestra Academy, such as B. double bass players are encouraged.
Donations and the proceeds from the benefit CD sales are used to help children with cancer and seriously ill children at the Bayreuth Clinic. The current main sponsors of the Bayreuth Easter Festival are the Motor Utility Group Bayreuth, Textilreinigung WILD GmbH, the city of Bayreuth, the Upper Franconian Foundation and Jenoptik AG.
In order to make the festival public, media partnerships were concluded with Radio Mainwelle, Nordbayerischer Kurier, TMT Multimedia-Productions, Bayerischer Rundfunk Studio Franken, BR-Klassik Crescendo, Deutschlandradio Kultur and Müller Verlag.
So far, around 1,000,000 euros have been donated to the children's clinic in Bayreuth and other institutions to support children with cancer and seriously ill children through the benefit concerts of the Bayreuth Easter Festival.
After the anniversary years of Franz Liszt (2011) and Richard Wagner (2013), the large symphony orchestra of the IJOA 2016 will focus on the Upper Palatinate composer Max Reger . In the 100th year of his death, his Ballet Suite op. 130 and Schubert songs arranged by him for orchestra will be performed. The symphony concert is rounded off with Johannes Brahms 4th Symphony.
Works played so far (selection)
- Mahler Symphony No. 1, 4, 5 & 10
- Mahler Symphony No. 2 (first performance in Bayreuth)
- Mahler songs
- Bruckner Symphony No. 3
- Bruckner Symphony No. 4
- Bruckner Symphony No. 6
- Bruckner Symphony No. 7
- Bruckner Symphony No. 8
- Bruckner Symphony No. 9
- Brahms Symphony No. 2
- Salieri "Prima la musica"
- Beethoven Symphony No. 7
- Tchaikovsky symphonies 4, 5 & 6
- Dvorak Symphonies 8 & 9
- Bruch Violin Concerto
- Mendelssohn Violin Concerto
- Wagner preludes and overtures to Parsifal
- Wagner overture to Tannhäuser
- Wagner Parsifal Suite
- Lohengrin
- Tannhäuser & Flying Dutchman
- Grieg Holberg Suite
- Vivaldi four seasons
- Mozart Violin Concerto in A major
- Mozart Horn Concerto in E flat major
- Bach Brandenburg Concerts
- Bach Violin Concerto in A minor
- Liszt Piano Concerto No. 1
- Schumann Symphony No. 4
- Schubert Symphony No. 8 "the unfinished"
CD recordings
19 classical CDs and one popular CD (jazz & salon orchestra) (8 in coproduction with Bayerischer Rundfunk)