Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania Festival

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Logo Festspiele Mecklenburg-Vorpommern.jpg

The Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania Festival is a classical music festival that has been held annually at venues throughout the state of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania since 1990 . It is one of the largest festivals of its kind in Europe.

Over 180 mainly classical concerts take place every year at over 80 venues such as B. in parks , palaces, castles and manor houses , brick Gothic churches, industrial buildings and barns instead. The ten-day festival spring Rügen in March as well as the Advent and New Year's concerts in Schwiessel, Stolpe, Ulrichshusen and Neubrandenburg are other important pillars of the festival year.

The festival is contested by artists such as Daniel Hope , Hilary Hahn , Nigel Kennedy , Martha Argerich , Matthias Schorn , Anne-Sophie Mutter , Kent Nagano , Viviane Hagner , Igor Levit , Julia Fischer , Hélène Grimaud , Gustavo Dudamel and Janine Jansen .

In the festival summer of 2018, a new visitor record was set for the festival with around 86,000 concert goers.

Founding history

In 1990 Matthias von Hülsen founded the Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania Festival. The founding concert took place on May 13th in the Mecklenburg State Theater in Schwerin . Co-founders included Justus Frantz, Hasso von Senden, Irene Schulte-Hillen, Werner Stegemann, Pastor Michael Bunners, Pastor Pilgrim, Anneliese Hoge, Merten Drevs and Bärbel Kleedehn. The Festival Association carried out this as a founding organization until 1995. In the same year, an implementation company (gGmbH) was founded for legal and organizational reasons . The association remains the owner of the logo, becomes the sponsoring association of the Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania Festival and, as “Festival Friends”, supports the work of the entire organizational team by recruiting and maintaining members, advisory work and the acquisition of donations.

management

Matthias von Hülsen was managing director and artistic director until September 2002. On October 1, 2002, Sebastian Nordmann succeeded him as director until December 31, 2008. On January 1, 2009, Matthias von Hülsen again took over overall management as managing director and headed the festival Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania until December 31, 2013. Markus Fein has been the festival's managing director since January 1, 2014 , and in November 2013 he presented the first program he put together. On September 1, 2020, Ursula Haselböck will be the first woman to lead the festival as artistic director.

Program series and priorities

"Young Elite"

Every year young artists appear in the “Young Elite” program series. The series has been the mainstay of the festival program since 1995. At the end of the season, three young artists from the “Young Elite” series will receive the festival prizes WEMAG soloist award, audience award made possible by the “CF Holtmann grant” and the NORDMETALL ensemble award. The Christine Kühne Prize was awarded for the first time in 2016. The award winners then return in the following years and give award winners concerts.

"Music from MV"

Since 2005, the festival has presented the cultural heritage of the state on the one hand, and ensembles from Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania on the other, which they usually invite in combination with festival award winners or other artists, including the North German Philharmonic Rostock, the State Youth Orchestra MV, the State Youth Jazz Orchestra MV and many more. An important part of "Music from MV" is the musical tradition of the Ludwigslust court at the end of the 18th century. In several concerts - from chamber concerts to choir orchestral concerts - the cultural life of this time is revived with a "Festival for the Ludwigslust Classic".

"Unheard of places"

The concert series “Unheard places” took place in 2015 for the first time. It offers architectural and musical journeys of discovery and presents music in unusual locations. At venues where classical music has mostly never been played, visitors experience concert programs that deal directly with the special features of the locations and illuminate their history in a sensitive way. Talks and guided tours to the locations complete the musical program.

"Summer campus"

Since 2005 the Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania Festival has been staging the summer campus concerts together with the Rostock University of Music and Drama . What is special is that, as part of the international masterclasses, the students here have the opportunity not only to learn from renowned lecturers, but also to rehearse for a week with a professional orchestra and to perform at the Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania Festival. Since 2015 the summer campus has been accompanied by the North German Philharmonic Rostock .

"360 ° ..."

In 2014 the three-day series "360 ° ..." was launched, which is dedicated to a different instrument every year. "360 ° ..." takes place at Ulrichshusen Castle and has already revolved around the string quartet (2014, with the Artemis Quartet , the Belcea Quartet and others), the viola (2015, with Nils Mönkemeyer and others), the piano (2016, with Igor Levit ao), the drums (2017, with Alexej Gerassimez ao), the cello (2018, with Daniel Müller-Schott , Harriet Krijgh and Anastasia Kobekina ao) and the vocals (2019, amarcord ao).

"2 x listening"

In the picturesque setting of Ulrichshusen Castle , the “2 x Hören” program is dedicated to listening to and enjoying music. In order to sharpen the senses for a work, the same piece is played twice in succession in different interpretations, which can thus be immediately compared with one another. The concept specially developed by Markus Fein has been taking place annually since 2018.

"Island Music"

The string quartet festival “Inselmusik” celebrates the most important genre of classical music. On three days in late summer, concerts about the string quartet will take place in the most beautiful places on the island of Rügen.

"Bothmer Music"

Young artists from all over the world come together for a three-day chamber music festival in the unique ambience of the baroque complex of Bothmer Castle in Klütz and present themselves in individual performances and at a joint concert.

Further

Other program series of the festival were and are, for example, “Landpartie”, “Mäck & Pomm - The children's and family program”, the “Singing Festival of the Young Elite” and the musical traveling theater “Fun fair of sensations”.

Prices

The Mecklenburg-Vorpommern Festival awards various prizes to the most outstanding artists of the season as well as to the most innovative venues.

  • The WEMAG Soloist Prize is chosen by the MV Festival and is endowed with € 5,000. It has been awarded jointly with WEMAG since 2008 .
  • The audience award goes to an artist or ensemble selected by the audience and is endowed with € 5,000. Since 2018, it has been made possible by the "CF Holtmann Scholarship".
  • The NORDMETALL ensemble award is for the best ensemble of young talents and is endowed with € 10,000. It is made possible by the Nordmetall Foundation .
  • The Christine Kühne Prize goes to outstanding young talents and is endowed with € 10,000. It is made possible by the Klaus-Michael Kühne Foundation .
  • The Nordkurier-Spielstättenpreis is awarded to the winner of the "Stars im Dorf" competition and is endowed with € 5,000. The award is donated by the Nordkurier .

Soloist Prize Winner

Ensemble award winner

Audience Prize Winner

Christine Kühne Prize Winner

Stars in the village - Nordkurier venue award

Award winner in residence

Every year since 2006, the Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania Festival has honored an outstanding artistic personality from the so-called award-winning family with the title “Prize Winner in Residence”. This artist can be experienced both as a soloist at various concerts and in chamber music projects such as the award-winning project and the Friends project, which he designed himself. The residence gives the respective artist the opportunity to realize dream projects to which he can also invite other artists. He thus has an artistic influence on the programming of the season.

The first prize winner in residence in 2006 was the internationally acclaimed British violinist Daniel Hope , who had been one of the Festival's prize winners since 1997. In the following year, the German violinist Julia Fischer was the award winner in residence. At the age of 13, she played one of her first concerts as part of the Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania Festival. In 2008, the German cellist Daniel Müller-Schott was a prizewinner in residence. He was the first soloist award winner at the Mecklenburg-Vorpommern Festival after the establishment of the international chamber music series “Junge Elite” in 1995 and has been a guest at the Mecklenburg-Vorpommern Festival every year since then. In 2009, violinist Viviane Hagner presented her broad musical repertoire in 13 concerts as the fourth prize winner in residence . This was followed by the Hungarian trumpeter Gábor Boldoczki (2010), the Chinese cellist Li-Wei Qin (2011), the violinist Veronika Eberle (2012), the Austrian clarinetist Matthias Schorn (2013) and the pianist Igor Levit (2014). In 2015, the French string quartet Quatuor Ebène was the first ensemble to be seen as a prize winner in residence. Most recently, the Norwegian violinist Vilde Frang (2016), the German drummer Alexej Gerassimez (2017), the American pianist Kit Armstrong (2018) and the Dutch cellist Harriet Krijgh (2019) shaped the program. With the Lithuanian accordionist Martynas Levickis , the festival summer 2020 will focus on the accordion for the first time .

Venues and venues

Examples of some festival locations by region that have already been played by the festival:

Mecklenburg Lake District

Northwest Mecklenburg

Rostock and the Rostock district

Kurhaus in Heiligendamm

Schwerin and Ludwigslust-Parchim

Vorpommern-Greifswald

Western Pomerania-Ruegen

Web links and sources

Individual evidence

  1. Venues of the MV Festspiele , accessed on January 28, 2020
  2. Festival season , accessed on January 28, 2020
  3. Positive balance of the 2018 festival summer , accessed on January 28, 2020
  4. Ursula Haselböck becomes artistic director of the Festival MV , accessed on January 28, 2020
  5. Program focus , accessed on January 28, 2020
  6. Golchen wins "Stars im Dorf" , accessed on January 28, 2020