© Kai Oesterwinter
Since its founding in 1987 by Leonard Bernstein, the International Orchestra Academy of the Schleswig-Holstein Music Festival has enjoyed an outstanding reputation. It is the centrepiece of the pedagogical activities of the Festival, forming the Schleswig-Holstein Festival Orchestra anew every year. Tours take the orchestra to the European music metropolises and to the USA on a regular basis. Every summer, the Festival Orchestra is reconvened as an international youth orchestra. Young musicians who have passed the auditions held all over the world work on great orchestral literature with famous conductors. The works are prepared in sectional rehearsals and then rehearsed intensively during the full orchestral sessions. In addition to Principal Conductor Christoph Eschenbach, conductors like Kent Nagano, Iván Fischer, Christopher Hogwood, Manfred Honeck, Krzysztof Urbanski and many others work with the Festival Orchestra regularly.
Konzerthaus, Berlin
© Sebastian Haenel
General Manager of the Foundation Berliner Philharmoniker
Martin Hoffmann was born in Nussloch/Heidelberg in 1959. He studied law at the universities in Saarbrücken, Lausanne and Hamburg, completing his studies with a law degree in 1991. Until 1993 he worked at the Max-Planck-Institute for Foreign and International Private Law and as a lawyer in Hamburg. From 1994 to 1996 Martin Hofmann was director of business affairs for the TV station Sat.1 and from 1997 to 1999 managing director of the Sat.1 Boulevard TV GmbH. In 2000 he was appointed managing director of the Sat.1 Satelliten Fernsehen GmbH, a position he held until 2003. From 2004 to 2010 he was chairman of the TV production company MME MOVIEMENT AG. In 2010 he became a member of its board of supervisors. Since September 2010 Martin Hoffmann has been general manager of the Foundation Berliner Philharmoniker.
© Eric Brissaud
Christoph Eschenbach has been closely associated with the Schleswig-Holstein Music Festival for almost two decades. Time and again, the pianist and conductor has rehearsed and performed fascinating programmes with the Festival Orchestra, whose chief conductor he has been since 2004 – their tours have regularly included Young Euro Classic. Since 2010 Eschenbach has also been the director of the National Symphony Orchestra and the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington DC. The 75-year-old continues to appear on all the world’s major concert stages. During the 2015/16 season, he conducts in Germany in Hamburg, Leipzig and the Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin. Other appearances include London, Paris and Madrid as well as Hong Kong, Shanghai and Seoul. Together with the Vienna Philharmonic, he is preparing an extensive tour of Asia. Last but not least, Eschenbach continues to perform as a piano soloist and in song recitals with the baritone Matthias Goerne.
Symphony No. 104 in D-Major Hob. I:104 (1795)
Symphony No. 9 in D-Minor WAB 109 (1887-1894, unfinished)
7 pm: Pre-concert Lecture with Dr. Dieter Rexroth in the Werner-Otto-Saal
Free for ticket holders (admission at 6:45 pm)
PROGRAMME
It is hard to imagine the festival Young Euro Classic without the Schleswig-Holstein Festival Orchestra, founded by Leonard Bernstein in 1987. The excellent ensemble from Germany’s north returns almost every year to the Konzerthaus, always featuring outstanding young musicians from all over the world and renowned conductors. Since 2004 Christoph Eschenbach has been chief conductor of the SHFO, and he also leads the orchestra during its Berlin appearance this year. The programme includes two absolute masterworks in the musical canon, reflecting the entire life’s experience of their creators: on the one hand, the 104th and final symphony by Joseph Haydn, a miracle of charm, wit and profundity; on the other, the last, unfinished Ninth by Anton Bruckner, a monumental construct of sound and architecture. In other words, exactly the right challenges for the Schleswig-Holstein Festival Orchestra!