Young Symphony Cologne
The Junge Sinfonie Köln is a German orchestra based in Cologne .
history
In 1966 a chamber music group was founded in the house of Poller's primary school rector Joseph Großgarten. After the first year the conductor Weyers gave the baton to György Földes, under whom the small ensemble was split up.
In 1968 Günter Hässy took over the management of the 20 remaining players in the house musicians' group and integrated 23 other musicians from his student chamber orchestra at the Cologne University of Music . With these musicians he founded the Young Symphony in Cologne. With this line-up, the orchestra played its first concert in 1969 with Mozart's A major symphony (KV 201) , his horn concerto in D major and Schubert's third symphony.
In 1970 the orchestra went on a tour to Granada with a Cologne choir. The final concert in the Church of San Hieronimo in Granada was attended by over 4500 people and was the orchestra's greatest success to date. This tour established a friendship with the Spanish Juventudes Musicales . In 1972, the orchestra was the first to give a concert for young listeners in Cologne - a discussion concert with explanations of the works that were performed. The concept of presenting music with child-friendly explanations and stories has become a trademark of the Junge Sinfonie Köln. In 1975 the future conductor Ulrich Gögel joined as a violinist. In 1977 he conducted his first concert in Caen and has since led the orchestra as an additional conductor.
In addition to the work in Cologne, there were contacts to Cambridge , where the orchestra held a joint concert with an English orchestra with a similar structure in the Guildhall, which was repeated the following year in Cologne. There was also a concert in St. Stephen's Cathedral in Vienna , at which Schubert's Unfinished was played paired with a Schubert mass, and seven Viennese choirs took part.
Another performance was a "Concert for Young Listeners" with Dietrich Schulz-Köhn, the "Dieter Gärtner Bigband" and the "Junge Sinfonie Köln", which included crossing the border from classical to jazz and in this form for the first time in Cologne could be heard.
The increasing number of orchestra members required the cooperation of further conductors. On the one hand, Andreas Wiedemann, a horn player from our own ranks, could be won over for this task. He directed concerts in Ireland ( Cork ) and America ( New York and Philadelphia ). On the other hand, Silke Löhr worked in the orchestra management and took on children's and symphony concerts.
In 1992, the manager of the Höhner approached Günter Hässy and suggested that we do something together. So the idea arose to unite the pop group with a symphonic orchestra and give a concert together. On April 30, 1993 the first evening "Höhner Classic" with the large orchestra of the Cologne Young Symphony was performed in the Cologne Philharmonic. After this great success, "20 years of the Höhner Classic" was celebrated in the Philharmonie in 2012. Höhner titles were orchestral arranged by Günter Hässy and with four overtures in the classical style, suitable for symphonies. Since 2007 his son Sebastian Hässy has been responsible for the management and parts of the arrangements.
In 2003, the chief pyrotechnician Georg Alef from the WECO company approached Günter Hässy to ask him to compose original fireworks music for the World Pyrotechnics Championships in Montreal, which both then choreographically coordinated. The result of this joint work was first performed in Cologne in 2004 (" Kölner Lichter ") and a fortnight later led to winning the World Cup in Montreal. In 2007 the symphonic poem "COLONIA ab URBE CONDITA" - the history of the city of Cologne composed by Günter Hässy especially for the Kölner Lichter 2007 - was performed. With this title, WECO won again in September 2007 with a music-synchronous fireworks display in Cannes .
Another highlight in 2005 was the performance of Gustav Mahler's 5th Symphony . Uli Gögel conducted this concert in Cologne's Gürzenich , where the composer himself performed his work 100 years ago. With 105 musicians, the largest number of orchestra members was on stage at this event.