Philharmonic Orchestra of the City of Heidelberg

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The Philharmonic Orchestra of the City of Heidelberg is a defining ensemble of musical life in the Heidelberg area . It works as an opera and concert orchestra. The Heidelberg City Theater and the Philharmonic Orchestra have been run as a unit since 2005 .

General

The Philharmonic Orchestra Heidelberg belongs to the TVK B orchestra remuneration class . It has 62 posts. The venues are the city ​​hall (Heidelberg) in the concert area and the Heidelberg city theater in the opera area . Every year the orchestra also organizes four concerts together with the Heidelberg Bach Choir , which take place in Heidelberg's Peterskirche . In addition, there is a focus on comprehensive educational work.

history

The Philharmonic Orchestra was founded on April 8, 1889 as the “Municipal Orchestra”. This point in time only marks the integration of the orchestra into the municipal administration. But even before that, the musical culture in Heidelberg was alive. In the beginning there was a "music association", which has been documented since 1812 and which essentially consisted of amateur musicians. As the “Heidelberg City Orchestra”, the orchestra received municipal subsidies from 1839 onwards. The work of the Municipal Orchestra was in the early years mainly from popular music . This changed with the engagement of the first important conductor, Philipp Wolfrum , who as the founder and conductor of the Heidelberg Bach Choir had played with the orchestra for many years. At the same time as Wolfrum, who was then the university music director, Paul Radig was the municipal music director . In the Wolfrum era, Heidelberg was a stronghold of contemporary music and the municipal orchestra was an influential institution in music history: Richard Strauss Days were held as early as 1893; In 1901 Jean Sibelius experienced his first international success at the Heidelberger Tonkünstlerfest of the Allgemeine Deutsche Musikverein , when he conducted two legends from the Lemminkäinen suite in a festival concert : “The Swan of Tuonela” and “Lemminkäinen Moves Home”; In 1913 there was a Heidelberg Music Festival entirely focused on Johann Sebastian Bach and Max Reger . The municipal music director Kurt Overhoff brought a new break in concert life , who took over the management of the symphony concerts in 1931 and assigned the orchestra to new responsibilities in the years to come. Overhoff had to give up his activity in 1940 due to illness. During the Second World War, Heidelberg's musical life was sustained primarily by well-known guest conductors.

As early as August 1945 Hermann Meinhard Poppen was able to reintroduce the concert series of the city and the Bach society with the municipal orchestra, which was partly made up of local forces, and the Bach Society in the castle courtyard . The appointment of music director Fritz Henn then brought the full reintroduction of concert and opera operations and also increased the number of permanent positions considerably.

Starting in 1947, GMD Ewald Lindemann continued the old Heidelberg tradition of being a pioneer in contemporary music in the best sense of the word: The intimate event series “MUSICA VIVA” was created. In the following years, the Philharmonic Orchestra had to struggle with the financial poverty of the post-war period and had to accept a reduction from the 58 posts in 1946-48 to 53; a short time later only 45 posts were filled, so that a total of 13 positions had been cut. Salary payments have also been severely decimated. The consequences of this were the migration of hard-to-replace musicians into secure positions in financially better off orchestras, and under the given conditions it was often very difficult to fill the vacancies with qualified musicians.

An upswing began with Karl Rucht's appointment in 1954 as director of the municipal orchestra. Rucht, former solo trumpeter of the Berlin Philharmonic , was already general music director of the Palatinate Orchestra in Ludwigshafen and has now taken over the Heidelberg Municipal Orchestra as the second orchestra in a leading position. He used his dual position to enable close cooperation between the two orchestras and to be able to perform large-scale works in this way. The collaboration between the Pfalzorchester Ludwigshafen and the Städtisches Orchester Heidelberg lasted until 1960.

Since they wanted to find a successor for Karl Rucht in peace, Hans Blümer, 1st Kapellmeister of the Städtische Bühne, was entrusted with the interim direction of the orchestra for a year. He faced this task in 1960–61 and again in 1972–73 with great commitment and a sense of responsibility. Due to the versatility of Blumers - not only in the musical field - both interim years never seemed like temporary arrangements.

In the following years Kurt Brass, Christian Süss and Gerhard Schäfer took over the management of the municipal orchestra and ensured that the repertoire was continuously expanded. Under Christian Süss, the first educational offers were set up: “Concerts for children and adults” and concert rehearsals open to the public, which were often also attended by school classes.

In 1986 Mario Venzago , who was born in Switzerland, took over the direction of the orchestra. His work as a conductor, pianist and accompanist and as a composer shows a very lively diversity that is difficult to assign to a particular direction. With the influence of his mentor Hans Swarowsky, he is a committed advocate of the music of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, but also of Robert Schumann and Arnold Schönberg. Venzago's wide-ranging programs for symphony and serenade concerts always met with great interest and applause from the audience. A major concern of Venzago was the constant workload, especially of the string groups. To remedy this situation, he succeeded in increasing the orchestra by 8 posts.

1989–1993 Anton Marik took over the position of general music director and conscientiously carried on the concert and opera tradition. With the 11-year tenure of the following General Music Director, Thomas Kalb, an important music festival was born: the “ Heidelberger Frühling ”, today internationally renowned, began on Kalb's initiative in 1997 with the “Brahms Festival”. In the beginning, the festival was organized by the orchestra on a small scale and, for the most part, also designed by the orchestra. Symphony concerts and chamber music formations from the orchestra determined the program. Successor Volker Christ celebrated successes and reached a wide audience with the “Philharmonic Wonders” concerts, a collaboration between the Philharmonic Orchestra and the Freddy Wonder Combo. From 2005 to 2012 the now internationally celebrated Cornelius Meister led the Philharmonic Orchestra in the position of General Music Director of the City of Heidelberg. He was followed by GMD Yordan Kamdzhalov until 2014. Elias Grandy has been General Music Director of the Philharmonic and the City of Heidelberg since the 2015/16 season. Today, the Heidelberg Philharmonic Orchestra, in unity with the Heidelberg City Theater under Artistic Director Holger Schultze, is an integral part of Heidelberg's musical life and enriches the cultural scene in many ways.

General Music Directors

Chronology of the general music directors and permanent directors of the Heidelberg Philharmonic Orchestra:

Projects

The New Wunderhorn

The New Wunderhorn was a cooperation between the theater , orchestra , dance and children's and youth theater branches ; the project was carried out in 2007. It is based on the literary model of the romantic poets Achim von Arnim and Clemens Brentano , who collected and continued to write German folk songs in Heidelberg and the surrounding area for their successful anthology " Des Knaben Wunderhorn ". Preparations for this began in autumn 2006. The Heidelberg City Theater and Philharmonic Orchestra were called upon to compile songs, poems, stories and sayings from the city again. Participation was open to anyone interested. The diverse contributions were brought to the stage with the Philharmonic Orchestra and amateur singers and dancers of all ages. On a weekend in July, the theater in the heart of the city could be experienced as a “wonder horn”. The huge range of art and poetry from the middle of the population was presented in the theater as a “mysterious, artfully operable device”. Among other things, a hundred-strong horn ensemble with amateur actors was set up. Compositions of the following commissioned composers were premiered in the great hall of the theater under the direction of GMD Cornelius Meister: Ernst Bechert, Jens Holzinger, Timo Jouko Herrmann , Erich S. Hermann, Evgeni Orkin and Martin Wistinghausen. In 2007 the project was awarded the “Young Ears Prize”.

Composer for Heidelberg

Every year the Heidelberg Philharmonic Orchestra works closely with a contemporary composer and performs several of his works, including world premieres. In the 2010/11 season the American Andrew Norman was the “composer for Heidelberg”, his successor for the 2011/12 season is the award-winning Swiss composer David Philip Hefti . In the past, Jörn Arnecke , Miroslav Srnka , Mark Moebius , Saed Haddad and Anno Schreier were among the “composers for Heidelberg”; a series that was launched in 2005 by GMD Cornelius Meister .

Artist Prize Heidelberg

The Heidelberg Artist Prize (see: Female composers yesterday-today ) was founded in 1987 by the singer Roswitha Sperber together with the state government to honor the work of contemporary female composers. For its twentieth anniversary in 2007, it was repositioned by Mayor Eckart Würzner and has since been awarded in connection with the performance of a symphonic work as part of a philharmonic concert. The musicologist Ludwig Finscher described the award as "one of the most important cultural awards in the country ... The clever selection of the award winners has helped to open boundaries, set quality standards, raise awareness of the stylistic diversity of contemporary composing, honor established female composers and young female composers to encourage people to make amends for injustices, as far as that is possible. ”The award winners include such well-known composers as Adriana Hölszky , Sofia Gubaidulina , Unsuk Chin , Olga Neuwirth and Isabel Mundry . For the 25th anniversary in 2012, the Kazakh composer Jamilia Jazylbekova received the Heidelberg Artist Prize. The following award winners are Maria Panayotova (2013), Lucia Ronchetti (2014), Iris ter Schiphorst (2015), Chaya Czernowin (2016) and Ying Wang (2017).

Awards

"Best concert program"

Twice (1994/95 and 2006/07) the Heidelberg Philharmonic Orchestra was awarded the prize for the “best concert program” by the German Association of Music Publishers .

"Young ears price"

The overarching theater, dance and music project “Das Neue Wunderhorn” was awarded the “Young Ears Prize” of the Young Ears Network in 2007. The prize is awarded annually to outstanding concert and music theater projects for young audiences. It recognizes high-quality productions with publicity, provides examples of successful music communication and stimulates the quality debate.

1st prize at the "Day of Music 2010"

The youth project “Rap It Like Heidelberg” was awarded first prize in 2010 by the German Music Council in the competition for the “Day of Music 2010”.

Recordings

Recordings

The Philharmonic Concerts are regularly recorded by Deutschlandfunk and SWR .

CD recordings

  • Johann Baptist Vanhal : Symphonies (April / May 1994, Musica Mundi)
    • Philharmonic Orchestra Heidelberg
    • Head of Thomas Kalb
  • Anton Bruckner : Symphony No. 9 in D minor (recording from April 13, 1996)
    • Philharmonic Orchestra Heidelberg
    • Head of Thomas Kalb
  • Organ works : Josef Gabriel Rheinberger , Marco Enrico Bossi (April 13-16, 1996, New Classical Adventure)
  • Night of the planets 1 + 2 : Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart , Alexander Raskatow , György Ligeti (concert recording December 1996, Antes Edition)
    • Philharmonic Orchestra Heidelberg
    • Head of Thomas Kalb
  • Ami Maayani - Esprit Méditerranéen : (concert recording November 2001 / February 2002, Fons Music)
    • Florence Sitruk, harp
    • Philharmonic Orchestra Heidelberg
    • Headed Romely Pound
  • Philharmonic Wonders (live recording as a film from November 30, 2004)
    • freddy wonder combo and Philharmonic Orchestra Heidelberg
    • Head: Volker Christ

Tours

Guest soloists and guest conductors (selection)

Conductors

Soloists

violin

violoncello

Wind players

piano

harp

Drums

singing

Web links

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