WDR music festival
The WDR music festival was a regular music event in North Rhine-Westphalia . It goes back to the concert series founded in 1984 by the initiative and with the support of Westdeutscher Rundfunk Köln (WDR) with the title “ Rheinische Musikfest ” and the “ Westfälische Musikfest ”. Since 2006, both individual events have been brought together under the overall responsibility of the WDR and since then have also been officially referred to as the " WDR Music Festival ". With the 2009 Music Festival in Münster , the event was discontinued due to competing events.
history
After 1958, the traditional Niederrheinische Musikfest , established with 112 events over the course of 150 years, was discontinued, as the organizational effort increased and at the same time the sponsorship money flowed less and less and the motivation of the city councils decreased. Furthermore, numerous mostly local music festivals, such as the Beethovenfest in Bonn and the Ruhrfestspiele in Recklinghausen, became a crowd puller and therefore formed serious competition. The same experiences were made with the Westphalian Music Festival, which took place from 1852 to 1909. The Rhineland owes a new edition of the two traditional music festivals mainly to the emerging tourism and the influence of the gastronomic establishments. Large breweries, hotel chains, transport companies and regional energy providers have been among the most frequent sponsors of the early summer concert series since the 1980s, alongside the official institutions. As a result of this support, the Allgemeine Deutsche Musikverein initially stepped in as event manager. The breakthrough came with the commitment of Westdeutscher Rundfunk from Cologne, after they had taken on the matter and in 1984 reissued the "Rheinische Musikfest" and the "Westfälische Musikfest", which finally started in 2006 under the common name "WDR- Musikfest ”were continued. The WDR Musikfest has since except for the years when in Cologne the MusikTriennale Cologne took place annually in May / June about two to three weeks in different cities of North Rhine-Westphalia organized. The event was not limited to the host city as the “regional center”, but also included the entire region and the surrounding towns and communities. After the MusikTriennale Köln was discontinued in 2010 and instead the annual festival "ACHT BRÜCKEN" was initiated in Cologne from 2011, there was no new edition of the WDR music festival.
Characteristic
The WDR Musikfest limited unlike its precursor events no longer alone on the great works of classical music and the Sacred Music , but there were also works of the avant-garde , the film music , the jazz and crossover concerts and rock and pop music for performance . Within the individual musical genres, not only were the traditional works played, but newer composers such as Manfred Leuchter , E. Jonasson, Radu Malfatti , Christian Banasik , Helmut Oehring , Karl-Heinz Blomann and many other composers were given the opportunity to have first performances or new editions to put forward. Young performers such as Daniel Gloger ( countertenor ), Birgitta Wollenweber (piano), Jaap Blonk (saxophone), Albrecht Maurer (violin), Jean Claude Séférian , (chanson) as well as young and new music ensembles such as the Xyrion Trio ( Classical), the “Thürmchen Ensemble” ( contemporary music ), the group “I Villani” ( early music ), the “Studium Chorale” from Maastricht ( a cappella ) as well as numerous light and serious music groups a welcome chance to demonstrate their skills to perform. Not only did the respective regional groups appear increasingly, but the WDR supported the respective events with its WDR Symphony Orchestra Cologne or its WDR Radio Orchestra Cologne as well as the regional youth choir . In addition to the established professional musicians , it was above all the numerous music amateurs and amateur groups who enlivened the WDR music festival with their carefree appearance. The individual concerts and performances were for the most part recorded and broadcast by the various radio stations of the WDR as well as by WDR television .
With this expansion of the WDR music festival with almost all types of music on numerous event locations over several weeks, the endeavor to achieve tourist attractions and to reach as many social classes as possible was taken into account.
Events
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Rhenish Music Festival (1984-2005)
- 1984 Düsseldorf; 1985 Duisburg; 1987 Cologne, 1988 Düsseldorf; 1989 Aachen; 1991 Cologne; 1992 Mönchengladbach; 1993 Essen, 1996 Cologne; 1997 Wuppertal; 1999 Duisburg; 2002 Aachen, 2005 Bonn,
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Westphalian Music Festival (1986-2003)
- 1986 Gelsenkirchen; 1990 Bielefeld; 1994 Bielefeld; 1998 Münster; 2001 Hagen / Iserlohn; 2003 Bielefeld;
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WDR Music Festival (from 2006)
- 2006 victories; 2008 Duisburg; 2009 Münster
Notes : In 1995 the Rheinische Musikfest was canceled due to the new edition of the Beethovenfest after a long break in Bonn and in 2000, 2004, 2007 and 2010 no music festivals were held because of the Cologne Music Triennial.