Choriner music summer
The Choriner Musiksommer is a series of events steeped in tradition, in the Chorin monastery ruins near Chorin in Brandenburg .
At around 15 concerts today, music from the 17th to 19th centuries is played mainly from Antonio Vivaldi and Georg Friedrich Händel to Edvard Grieg and Richard Wagner . But rarer pieces and choral music are also performed.
In 2013 the concert series took place for the 50th time in a row.
history
The first concert took place on May 23, 1964, at that time not as an attempt to found a series of events of this quality, but on the initiative of Albert Richter as a cultural event of the company for the employees of the Institute for Forest Sciences in Eberswalde . Since the ruins of the monastery were managed by the forest administration at the time, the venue came about.
The nave of the ruin, which is open on one side, and the adjacent lawns are used.
In the years 1964 to 1969 there was only one concert with around 600 spectators. 1970 to 1973 the number of visitors per concert doubled and four concerts have already taken place. Soon 2,100 people came per concert, so the space was regularly sold out. Between 1974 and 1989 there were 13 concerts a year. By 1989 162 concerts with a total of more than 300,000 concert-goers had been recorded.
After the fall of the Wall in 1989, the organization was transferred to the association “Choriner Musiksommer eV” under the leadership of Gunther Wolff (died February 20, 2013) due to the dissolution of the institute . Furthermore, sponsors were found in order to secure the event financially in the future.
Today the organizer is the "Choriner Musiksommer eV", ie volunteers, often from the area around the forest institute. Wolfgang Thierse has been its patron since 2006 . In addition to entrance fees and support from the state of Brandenburg, the events are financed by sponsors.
An exception among open-air events with such a long tradition is that an event has never been completely canceled due to bad weather.
Many of the most important soloists and orchestras in Europe and from overseas have already been to Chorin and there are very few such top-class open-air series of classical music events in Europe.
Up to 2005, around 650,000 people attended the concerts.