Zurich Festival

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Logo of the Zurich Festival

The Zurich Festival (until 2012 Zurich Festival ) is a summer festival that runs from 1996 to 2020 and is jointly supported by Zurich's cultural institutions and is each dedicated to one topic. The program is organized by the Opera House , the Playhouse , the Tonhalle Orchestra and the Kunsthaus Zürich . The Rietberg Museum , Gessnerallee Zurich and the Neumarkt and Rigiblick theaters are regularly involved. In addition, the festival offers a platform for other Zurich cultural institutions that contribute to the respective common festival theme. The program includes opera, drama, concerts (from classical to jazz), dance, exhibitions, readings and discussions. Events not only take place in the participating institutions, but also often free of charge at various locations in the city. The program includes, for example, the summer night ball in Zurich's main train station, or “Opera for everyone”, the live opera broadcast from the Zurich Opera House to Sechseläutenplatz .


history

The Zurich Festival was founded in 1996 as a successor to the June Festival Weeks (1921–1993). They were largely initiated by Alexander Pereira , who was its artistic director and chairman of the artistic commission of the Zurich Festival from the start. In 2011 Elmar Weingarten , director of the Tonhalle Orchestra Zurich, took over this position .

Realignment 2013

Under the direction of Elmar Weingarten, the festival was given a new profile following a strategy review. The new name “Festspiele Zürich”, which was introduced at the end of 2012, expresses the increased cooperation between the four major cultural institutes, the Zurich Opera House, Zurich Theater, Kunsthaus Zurich and Tonhalle Orchestra Zurich. In 2013 they organized the Zurich Festival for the first time under a common motto, to which all participating institutions made their contribution. With the reorientation of the Zurich Festival, new and stronger partnerships could be established that made it possible to examine the festival themes from different perspectives. The 152 events at 31 venues had around 74,000 visitors.

Organizational adjustments in 2016

In 2016, the Board of Trustees and the Artistic Commission decided to hold the Zurich Festival every two years and in a time-focused period of three weeks in June well before the end of the season. This bundling of strengths and financial means enables even more careful planning and work on content-rich projects specially produced on the respective topic. In addition, a new curator is appointed for each edition of the festival, who works out and outlines the festival theme determined by the artistic commission together with the participating institutions and thus further sharpens the content profile of the festival. The Spanish artist and decorator Belén Montoliú, who lives in Germany, prevailed in the selection process for the 2018 Zurich Festival, which is dedicated to the theme of “Beauty / Madness”.

Topics and highlights from 2013

year theme Highlights
2018 «Beauty / Madness» Free events in the new festival center on the Münsterhof .
2016 «Dada - Between madness and nonsense» Francis Picabia - a retrospective (Kunsthaus Zürich)

der die mann (guest performance of the Volksbühne Berlin at the Schauspielhaus Zurich)

2015 «Money Makes Love - Shakespeare and Other Powers» I Capuleti ei Montecchi (Zurich Opera House)

The Tiger Lillies perform Hamlet (guest performance of the Theater Republique Copenhagen at the Schauspielhaus Zurich)

2014 «Prometheus - Unleashing Your Forces» Luigi Nono : Prometeo (Tonhalle Zurich)
2013 "Greenhouse Wagner" Hans Neuenfels : Richard Wagner - How I became a world (coproduction of the Schauspielhaus and Zurich Opera House)

Zurich Festival Foundation

The Zurich Festival is organized by the Zurich Festival Foundation, which was founded in 1996 by Opernhaus Zurich AG, neue Schauspiel AG, the Zurich Art House Foundation and the Tonhalle Society Zurich. The guiding principle of the foundation is to provide additional and new impulses for cultural life in the city and canton of Zurich as well as in Switzerland and to contribute to the promotion of the national and international presence of the city and canton of Zurich and the cultural institutes involved. To this end, the foundation promotes cooperation between the various cultural institutions and in particular financially supports their festival events as well as third-party festival events that work in the spirit of the foundation's concept.

organization

Board of Trustees

The supreme body of the Zurich Festival Foundation is the Board of Trustees of the Zurich Festival, which consists of nine members, of which each of the four founding organizations has one person from its board of directors or board of directors and the members jointly elect one person for the presidium who is not on any of the board members or board members may belong to the aforementioned art institutes. In 2012, two new independent members were elected to the Board of Trustees. Ursula Gut-Winterberger has been President of the Board of Trustees since 2016 (previously: Peter F. Weibel 2003–2016, founding President Hans J. Bär 1996–2003).

Artistic Commission

The Artistic Commission is responsible for all artistic questions of the foundation. It includes the artistic directors and directors of the Opera House, Playhouse, Kunsthaus and Tonhalle Orchestra Zurich. She creates, advises and coordinates the festival program. Since 2016 she has been supported by a newly appointed curator for each edition of the festival.

Office

Until 2015, one member of the Artistic Commission took over the chairmanship of the commission at the same time as the management of the Zurich Festival. Since 2016, the Festival has had Alexander Keil, a managing director who is independent of the founding institutions. He is supported in coordinating the Zurich Festival by the office established in 2003.

Zurich Festival Prize

Since 2007, the Zurich Festival Prize established by the Bär Kaelin Foundation has been presented annually at the Zurich Festival. From 2017 it will be awarded every two years, between two editions of the Zurich Festival. It is awarded to a personality who has made outstanding contributions to Zurich culture through outstanding artistic achievements. The prize, which is endowed with CHF 50,000, also aims to promote art and culture in the canton of Zurich and to contribute to the international appeal of the festival. The Artistic Commission of the Zurich Festival decides on the winner.

Award winners

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ "Profile gain and name change" , Neue Zürcher Zeitung (NZZ), December 4, 2010, accessed on July 29, 2013
  2. "Review of the Zurich Festival 2013" ( Memento of the original from November 12, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , Media release from the Zurich Festival, July 16, 2013 (PDF; 37 kB). @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.festspiele-zuerich.ch
  3. ^ "Between beauty and madness" , Neue Zürcher Zeitung (NZZ), October 27, 2016, accessed on February 21, 2017
  4. Francis Picabia: Abrupt changes, wild jumps, adventurous curves. In: Aargauer Zeitung (AZ), June 6, 2016, accessed on February 21, 2017.
  5. When the words learn to dance. In: Neue Zürcher Zeitung (NZZ), June 5, 2016, accessed on February 21, 2017.
  6. Family ties. In: Neue Zürcher Zeitung (NZZ), June 22, 2015, accessed on February 21, 2017.
  7. Soundtrack to the dream game. In: Neue Zürcher Zeitung (NZZ), June 27, 2015, accessed on February 21, 2017.
  8. The happiness of concentrated listening. In: Neue Zürcher Zeitung (NZZ), July 7, 2014, accessed on February 21, 2017.
  9. ^ Wagner delusional. In: Der Spiegel , June 12, 2013, accessed on February 21, 2017.
  10. ^ Zurich Festival: 2014 Zurich Festival Prize goes to Fritz Senn. (PDF) - Honor for the head of the James Joyce Foundation in Zurich. Media release of December 12, 2013.