AUGUST & SEPTEMBER 2019: CONCERTS & WORK IN JURY
More to the background of the composer's profession belongs the collaboration as jury member at competitions. Looking through stacks of scores and making serious decisions about people's lives is as strenuous as it is responsible! - These were four competitions in the summer of 2019: the Tyrolean Composer Prize, won by the Austrian artist Rita Goller; the "International Music Competition" in Harbin, China's northernmost metropolis, considered to be a musical centre of China. . Eight major orchestral works were performed by the Harbin Philharmonics and had to be judged by an international jury: Unsuk Chin (Korea), Xiaogang Ye (China), Robert Beaser (Julliard School New York), George Lewis (Columbia University New York) and Enjott Schneider (Germany). The 1st prize of 50,000 dollars went to Sam Wu (Australia). In Brussels/Italy there was the competition "Leonardo 4 Children" as an artistic examination of Leonardo da Vinci. In St. Peterburg (Russia) the competition "National Collection" offered a special colour: Here compositions were awarded which use "ethnological" or "local" instruments. A very important competition, because such music is usually labeled as "folklore"...although (as the more than 80 scores showed) it was a most serious line of contemporary music.
In addition to the more public "World Premieres", there were many concerts with repeat performances in summer 2019. For example, my opera MARCO POLO (composed in Chinese language) was performed in Quanzhou/China from 1 July, and in September2019 as a European premiere in the opera houses of Milan and Genoa (Italy). On 3 August 2019 the Singapore Chinese Orchestra played my "EARTH & FIRE" for sheng and orchestra (soloist: Wu Wei) in Singapore and then went on a European tour from Konzerthaus Berlin to Forli (Italy) and the Dodoni Festival 2019 in Greece - there spectacularly in the ancient theatre with its 18,000 seats (see photo). Besides my "EARTH & FIRE" the impressive "FIRE RITUAL" by the Chinese composer Tan Dun is played under the direction of Tsung Yeh.
The concert tour of the American organist Felix Hell (New York), who "celebrates" my Toccata SCHLAFES BRUDER with stupendous virtuosity and by heart, is to be emphasized, so in Paris (Oratoire du Louvre) on 6 July, Kaiserdom Königslutter on 14 July, on 20/21 July in the Heidelberg Audimax with orchestra, on 31 July in the Münchner Frauendom and on 22 August in the Passauer Dom. The Nuremberg Symphony Orchestra with the Saxophone Quartet Clair-Obscur will play BERLIN PUNK on a tour from Nuremberg to Munich.
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Passion and discovering new worlds...
New Works, new CD.... composing out of passion
WORLDPREMIERE "SPIRITS OF SIBERIA"
"SPIRITS OS SIBERIA" is fascinating with a world of shamanic Power and with omnipresent siberian Spirits at the festival ASIA - SIBERIA - EUROPE. Reinhold Friedrich (Trumpet) is celebrated with standing ovations.
POWER OF PAST - FINDING THE FUTURE IN THE PAST
Now I am in my 70th year of life, which will be celebrated and concluded as a birthday in 2020. As if by itself, there is a reflection of the past. The future becomes more meaningless. My mother has died in March 2019 and I was allowed to accompany her until to her last breath. That also asked many questions about time and life.... The prehistory of life and the world has always occupied and inspired me, the longevity of the trees, some of which are thousands of years old, the documents of past epochs: fascinating, how long before the biblical Creation Report and its time counting there were already cultures and civilization.
ASIA - Seeking the origins of culture
Asia, a longing for the origins of cultures that has been increasingly buried in Western civilization, has been fascinating for over 20 years. Encounter with old traditional instruments, with a concept of "Modernism" that is not as Eurocentric as our "contemporary music" stamped by Darmstadt, Donaueschingen or Adorno.
CD Recordings 2019
On January 15th Naxos officially released the WERGO-CD "CLAIR-OBSCUR. THE COLORS OF SAXOPHONES" with the Saxopohone Quartet CLAIR OBSCUR and with best reviews. And immediately it continues with new CD recordings: The CD BERNARDUS recorded in Gdansk/Poland, WERGO-CD „MOZART & BEETHOVEN MEETING YIN & YANG“ in March with Jena Philharmonics and in April in Siberia Part I of "KRASNOYARSK COUNTERPOINTS"
