New Westphalia Philharmonic
The Neue Philharmonie Westfalen with 124 musicians, the largest of the three national orchestras in North Rhine-Westphalia (headquarters: Recklinghausen). Further music ensembles exist in Hilchenbach / South Westphalia and in Herford in East Westphalia . In addition to the permanent concert venues of Gelsenkirchen , Recklinghausen and Kamen , the Neue Philharmonie Westfalen performs mainly in cities and communities in the northern Ruhr area and beyond, where there is no symphony orchestra of its own . In addition, the performance of the Musiktheater im Revier (MiR) in Gelsenkirchen and the work for children and young people take up a large part of the orchestra's creative activities. The Neue Philharmonie Westfalen handles almost 300 events per season and, in its diverse concert series, covers the entire range of orchestral literature from the baroque to the modern. Crossover concerts with pop or rock music are also part of the orchestra's repertoire.
General Music Directors
The first general music director was the Austrian conductor Johannes Wildner from 1997 to 2007 , who was appointed honorary conductor of the orchestra in 2007. From 2007 to 2014, the orchestra was directed by Heiko Mathias Förster , who previously directed the Brandenburg and Munich Symphony Orchestra . Rasmus Baumann has been General Music Director since September 1, 2014 . Born in Gelsenkirchen, after stints in Essen and Kassel, he was music director of the Musiktheater im Revier in Gelsenkirchen for six years. Since taking office, Rasmus Baumann has been breaking new ground with the ensemble: be it in the new conception of the symphony concert cycle, the expansion of the crossover concerts or the establishment of new concert series and formats.
Focus
Concerts
The orchestra has a cycle of nine symphony concerts and several special concerts per season. Permanent concert venues are the Great House of the Musiktheater im Revier in Gelsenkirchen, the Ruhrfestspielhaus Recklinghausen and the concert hall in Kamen, where the New Westphalia Philharmonic Orchestra performs its symphony concerts. In addition, the Neue Philharmonie Westfalen performs regularly in other cities in North Rhine-Westphalia.
Music theater in the district
Another task is the production of the music theater in the Revier in Gelsenkirchen. Although it has an ensemble and a renowned choir (with an extra choir), it does not have its own orchestra. It is the task of the state orchestra to accompany the operas, operettas or musicals that are performed in the MiR as an opera orchestra.
Child and youth work
A special focus is the concert work for and with children and young people. In addition to child-friendly concerts, the youth dramaturgy of the orchestra, in close cooperation with the schools in the catchment area, takes on the task of preparing schoolchildren for attending classical concerts through a so-called “music workshop” in the classrooms and making music tangible with as many senses as possible. The attempt is made to bring the instruments and the history of individual pieces of music closer to the children in an age-appropriate manner. A regular end to the “music workshop” is a joint visit to an orchestra concert with other school classes.
Recordings
In addition to the performances, it is also part of the ensemble's philosophy to immortalize projects on sound carriers. CDs with works by Anton Bruckner , Richard Strauss , Johannes Brahms and Max Bruch have been released under the direction of Johannes Wildner . Heiko Mathias Förster has already continued the series of CD recordings. A recording of the 1st Symphony by Gustav Mahler has been released, followed by a recording of works by the Viennese Strauss family or the recently released CD "Escapades" with works for saxophone and orchestra together with the Berlin saxophonist Jan Schulte-Bunert.
history
The orchestra was created in 1996 from the merger of two orchestras in the northern Ruhr area: the Westphalian Symphony Orchestra in Recklinghausen and the Philharmonic Orchestra of the City of Gelsenkirchen. In addition to the state of North Rhine-Westphalia, the orchestra is supported by the cities of Gelsenkirchen and Recklinghausen as well as the district of Unna .
The highlights of the work in the symphonic field were the performances of the complete works of Ludwig van Beethoven as well as the cyclical performances of the works of Anton Bruckner , Gustav Mahler and Richard Strauss .
In autumn 2000 the orchestra made its non-European debut; the Neue Philharmonie Westfalen followed an invitation to the Beijing Festival in Beijing . There the Seven Gates of Jerusalem were performed by Krzysztof Penderecki under the direction of the composer. In addition, Schönberg's Gurre-Lieder , Verdi's Aida and Bizet's Carmen were spectacular and unusual productions of these works in the sold out Arena Auf Schalke in Gelsenkirchen.
In the recent past, too, the orchestra has repeatedly performed outside of its actual catchment area. At the beginning of the 2005/2006 season there were two concerts with the Russian star soprano Anna Netrebko in Hanover and Mannheim . The state orchestra was also a guest at the Speyer Cathedral World Heritage Site , the Cologne Philharmonic , the Glocke Bremen , the “ Franziskaner Konzerthaus ” in Villingen , the Teatro Dante Alighieri Ravenna , the Teatro Communale di Modena and, most recently, the Tonhalle Zürich and in the KölnArena with the performance of the “Lord of the Rings” symphony. In autumn 2007 the Neue Philharmonie Westfalen accompanied the operetta tour of Angelika Kirchschlager and Simon Keenlyside in the four German metropolises and played in the Herkulessaal Munich, the Cologne Philharmonic, the Laeiszhalle Hamburg and the Philharmonie Berlin . In December 2007, the Neue Philharmonie Westfalen again accepted an invitation to the Philharmonie Berlin to perform together with the Italian star soprano Lucia Aliberti . As part of an opera gala with the star soprano Elīna Garanča, the ensemble from the northern Ruhr area made music in spring 2009 in Munich ( Philharmonie am Gasteig ), Frankfurt am Main ( Alte Oper ), Düsseldorf ( Tonhalle ), Hamburg (Laeiszhalle) and in the Liederhalle Stuttgart . Another highlight for the orchestra from the northern Ruhr area were two concerts in summer 2009 in Essen and at the North Sea Jazz Festival in Rotterdam with world-class pianists Lang Lang and Herbie Hancock under the direction of John Axelrod . In spring 2011 the national orchestra accompanied the Italian star tenor Vittorio Grigolo at concerts in Zurich, Berlin and Munich, and a year later the Slovak soprano Edita Gruberová . In summer 2012 the Neue Philharmonie Westfalen performed again with Anna Netrebko in Münster, Mannheim and Wiesbaden.
In addition, the orchestra regularly organizes special concerts to bring together serious and popular music, e.g. B. through the film music series “MiR goes Film” or the events planned for 2014 under the title “ABBA forever”.
After the city of Recklinghausen, as one of the sponsors, announced that it would not increase its grants from 2016 - despite the expected increases in wages - the orchestra was included in the German Cultural Council 's Culture Red List in March 2015 and placed in Category 2 (= endangered ). In August 2015, the sponsors, the Deutsche Bühnenverein and the Deutsche Orchestervereinigung signed a contract that secures the existence of the New Westphalia Philharmonic until 2021. The orchestra celebrated its 20th anniversary in the 2016/2017 season, and in 2019 it made its first guest appearance at the Elbphilharmonie with Anna Netrebko .
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b c History - New Westphalia Philharmonic. Retrieved October 24, 2019 .
- ↑ Politics & Culture No. 2 March / April 2015, p. 13 Cultural Life : The Red List ( Memento from June 21, 2015 in the Internet Archive ), accessed on March 15, 2015
- ↑ Tina Brambrink: Neue Philharmonie Westfalen. The orchestra should secure a compromise by 2021. In: Recklinghäuser Zeitung . June 11, 2015, accessed April 22, 2020 .
- ↑ Neue Philharmonie Westfalen receives guarantee until 2021. In: Klassik.com . August 21, 2015, accessed April 22, 2020 .