Wuppertal Symphony Orchestra
| Wuppertaler Bühnen und Sinfonieorchester GmbH (SOW) |
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| legal form | GmbH |
| founding | 1862 |
| Seat | Wuppertal |
| Managing directors | Daniel Siekhaus |
| people | Julia Jones, Patrick Hahn (from 2021/22) (General Music Directors) |
| Website | www.sinfonieorchester-wuppertal.de |
The Wuppertal Symphony Orchestra (SOW) is the largest symphony orchestra in the Bergisches Land as a division of the Wuppertal theaters . In addition to working as an opera orchestra, the orchestra of collective wage group A plays over 50 concerts per season in its home venue, the historic town hall in Wuppertal . The approximately 95 musicians have been directed by General Music Director Julia Jones since the 2016/17 season . With the 2021/22 season, Patrick Hahn will take on the role of General Music Director as Germany's youngest GMD.
history
Founded in 1862 as the Elberfelder Kapelle, the SOW celebrated its 150th anniversary in 2012. Soloists and conductors such as Clara Schumann , Joseph Joachim , Johannes Brahms and Max Bruch gave the young orchestra the honor. In the past, Georg Ratjen, Fritz Lehmann , Jean-François Monnard , Martin Stephani , Hanns-Martin Schneidt , Hans Weisbach and Peter Gülke were among the artistic directors of the ensemble. Many conductors began their musical careers in Wuppertal, including Hans Knappertsbusch , Erich Kleiber , Otto Klemperer , Hermann von Schmeidel and Hans Weisbach.
The orchestra was directed from 2004 to 2016 by General Music Director Toshiyuki Kamioka , until 2009 in the role of General Music Director of the City of Wuppertal, subsequently as Chief Conductor and Artistic Director of the Symphony Orchestra and again as General Music Director since 2014. The participants have been part of the Wuppertaler Bühnen und Sinfonieorchester GmbH since January 2013 . In July 2020, the orchestra announced the appointment of Patrick Hahn as future General Music Director of the City of Wuppertal from the 2021/22 season to succeed Julia Jones . The 24-year-old Austrian becomes the youngest GMD in the German-speaking area.
Venues
The historic town hall of Wuppertal , with its excellent acoustics, is the main venue for almost all concerts today, and was inaugurated by the orchestra under the direction of the conductor and composer Richard Strauss in 1900. Built as a representative building for the then independent Elberfeld , it was the only historical venue in Wuppertal that remained largely undamaged during World War II. Equipped with one of the largest organs in Germany, a 190 m² stage and around 1,550 seats, experts agree that it is acoustically one of the best concert halls in Europe, on a par with the Leipzig Gewandhaus , the Wiener Musikverein or the concert halls in Munich and Zurich .
The Wuppertal Opera House was originally built as the Stadttheater Barmen in 1905 and was last renovated in 2009 and has around 700 seats. Today it is the main venue for the Wuppertal theaters and the Pina Bausch dance theater .
Education program
In addition to the numerous symphony concerts, the Wuppertal Symphony Orchestra has been devoting its education program to the younger generation of concert-goers for some time. The school concert series is prepared in project-related workshops for teachers as well as visits by the orchestra musicians to the schools. In the Soloist at School series , the soloists of the symphony concerts visit high school classes in advance and present themselves and their work. The moderated family concerts round off the education profile.
Concert tours
In addition to annual guest performances in Milan, concert tours have taken the ensemble to Paris, Breslau, Turin, Rome and Amsterdam, among others. In 2007 there was a celebrated performance with saxophonist Branford Marsalis at the Ravello Festival. The orchestra also performed two tours to Japan: in 2007 with five concerts in the Tokyo area and in 2010 with a total of ten concerts in 14 days in Nagoya , Nishinomiya , Matsumoto , Kurashiki , Fukuoka and Tokyo. Two new CDs were created as part of the first tour : Tchaikovsky's Pathétique and Bruckner's 7th Symphony . Before the second tour, two more recordings were made: Mahler's Fifth Symphony and orchestral music from the Ring of the Nibelung . This was preceded by numerous CD productions, including the award-winning Rubinstein recording, which won an Echo Classic in 2003 . In August 2011 the orchestra made their debut in the sold-out Concertgebouw Amsterdam under the baton of Toshiyuki Kamioka .
Film music projects
The Wuppertal Symphony Orchestra entered new musical territory with the film music recordings from Hans Zimmer's workshop . In 2007 the music for the Hollywood animated film The Little Dodo was recorded. Follow-up projects in 2008 were the documentary Tortuga - The Incredible Journey of the Sea Turtle and the animated film Mullewapp - The Friends' Big Cinema Adventure . In 2011, the Wuppertal musicians recorded the orchestral film music by the television award-winning composer Andreas Schäfer for the literary film adaptation of Tom Sawyer .
CD recordings (selection)
- Anton Reicha : Concertante Symphony in G major, Overture in D major, Symphony in E flat major op. 41; Ida Bieler (violin), Jean-Claude Gérard (flute), Peter Gülke (conductor), 1995
- Trumpet concerts by Alexander Arutjunjan , Joseph Haydn and Giuseppe Torelli , Johann Sebastian Bach: Jauchzet Gott in allen Landen BWV 51, cantata for soprano, trumpet, strings and bc; Uwe Komischke (trumpet), Stefan Klieme (conductor), 1997
- Norbert Burgmüller : Overture in F major, Op. 5, Piano Concerto in F sharp minor, Op. 1, Symphony No. 2 in D major. 11; Leonard Hokanson (piano), Gernot Schmalfuß (conductor), 1998
- Felix Draeseke : Piano Concerto op. 36, Symphony No. 1, op. 12; Claudius Tanski (piano), George Hanson (conductor), 1999
- Max Bruch : Violin Concerto No. 3 in D minor, op. 58, Symphony No. 2 in F minor, op. 36; Andreas Krecher (violin), Gernot Schmalfuß (conductor), 1999
- Max Bruch : Swedish Dances op. 63, Serenade for string orchestra op. Posth., Schön Ellen op. 24; Claudia Braun (soprano), Thomas Laske (baritone), Kantorei Barmen-Gemarke, George Hanson (conductor), 2002
- Anton Rubinstein : Don Quixote op. 87, ballet music from The Demon , concerto for violoncello and orchestra; Alban Gerhardt (violoncello), George Hanson (conductor), 2003
- Anton Bruckner : Symphony No. 7 in E major; Toshiyuki Kamioka (conductor), 2007
- Peter Tchaikovsky : Symphony No. 6 in B minor, Op. 74 (Pathétique) ; Toshiyuki Kamioka (conductor), 2007
- Robert Schumann : Symphony No. 4 in D minor, Op. 120; Toshiyuki Kamioka (conductor), 2008
- Richard Strauss : Sinfonia domestica op. 53; Toshiyuki Kamioka (conductor), 2009
- Richard Wagner : orchestral music from The Ring of the Nibelung , A Faust Overture; Toshiyuki Kamioka (conductor), 2010
- Gustav Mahler : Symphony No. 5; Toshiyuki Kamioka (conductor), 2010
- Ludwig van Beethoven : Symphony No. 9; Toshiyuki Kamioka (conductor), 2013
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ Patrick Hahn becomes GMD of the Wuppertaler Bühnen und Sinfonieorchester | nmz - new music newspaper. Retrieved July 3, 2020 .