Two special characteristics stand out about the Young Philharmonic Orchestra Jerusalem Weimar: on the one hand, the orchestra is formed by young musicians from Israel and Germany – students of the Jerusalem Academy of Music and Dance and the Music Academy Franz Liszt in Weimar. On the other hand, they perform works reflecting the historical connections and ruptures between the two countries, which the musicians – thus the constitutive idea – wish to “express anew, transcending denial and forgetting”. The first joint concerts, all of them under Michael Sanderling’s baton, took place in the summer of 2011 in commemoration of the Buchenwald Concentration Camp, at Castle Wartburg, in Berlin, Jerusalem and Tel Aviv. In 2013 further concerts in Germany and Israel followed, and at Pentecost 2014 Bach’s Mass in B-Minor was performed in Jerusalem. The 2015 Young Euro Classic Opening Night – the orchestra’s second appearance at the festival after 2013 – marks the beginning of a small concert tour of Germany, to be followed by another tour of Israel under Sanderling’s baton in October 2015.
Konzerthaus, Berlin
Michael Sanderling, born and educated in Berlin, turned to conducting after a successful career as a cellist. At the age of 20, he was appointed solo cellist at the Gewandhaus Orchestra Leipzig under Kurt Masur in 1987; later he held the same position at the Radio Symphony Orchestra Berlin (until 2006). In 2000, the youngest son of the legendary conductor Kurt Sanderling made his conducting debut with the Berlin Chamber Orchestra. Since the 2011/12 season, the 48-year-old conductor has been chief conductor of the Dresden Philharmonic, an engagement recently prolonged until 2019. From 2006 to 2010 Michael Sanderling was music director of the German String Philharmonic. Furthermore, he has worked with the radio orchestras in Stuttgart, Munich, Cologne, Hamburg, Leipzig and Hanover; other recent invitations include appearances in Zurich, London, Toronto and Tokyo. In 2010 the conductor founded the Skyline Symphony in Frankfurt, an orchestra which unites musicians from European orchestras to offer accessible music for a younger audience on the campus of the Goethe University.
Alexey Stadler is from St. Petersburg, where he received his first cello lessons at the age of four. Even during his student days, Alexey Stadler won various prizes and national awards, such as “Young Talent” (2008, 2009 and 2010) and “Russia’s Hope” (2008, 2009). He attended master classes with Natalia Gutman, David Geringas and Frans Helmerson. Today, the 24-year-old studies at the Music Academy Franz Liszt in Weimar with Wolfgang Emanuel Schmidt. The cellist can already look back on a multitude of high-carat invitations: thus, he appeared as a soloist with the St. Petersburg Philharmonic, the Czech Radio Orchestra and the London Chamber Orchestra under Vladimir Ashkenazy. As a chamber musician, Stadler has been invited to the Verbier Festival, the Heidelberger Frühling and the Kronberg Academy, where he performed with Gidon Kremer, Yuri Bashmet and Christian Tetzlaff. Stadler plays a 19th-century cello which formerly belonged to the Russian Tsar Nicholas II.
«Links. Metamorphosis» (2015)
Symphony No. 2 (1934)
Concerto for Cello No. 1 in E-flat-Major Op. 107 (1959)
Fantasy Overture to «Romeo and Juliet» (1880)
Welcome
Michael Müller (tbc)
Governing Mayor of Berlin,
Patron of Young Euro Classic
Dr. Willi Steul
1st Chairman, Deutscher Freundeskreis
europäischer Jugendorchester e.V.
Moderation
Ulrich Deppendorf
2nd Chairman, Deutscher Freandeskreis
europäischer Jugendorchester e.V.
7 pm: Pre-concert Lecture in the Werner-Otto-Saal
Free for ticket holders (admission at 6:45 pm)
Moderation: Dr. Dieter Rexroth, Artistic Director of Young Euro Classic
In cooperation with the Körber Foundation.
PROGRAMME
Young Euro Classic opens its 2015 season with a concert arousing plenty of curiosity: after its brilliant festival debut two years ago, the Young Philharmonic Orchestra Jerusalem Weimar returns to the Konzerthaus Berlin with music conservatory students of both countries. They present a multi-faceted programme: passion and brilliance in Tchaikovsky’s Romeo and Juliet Overture, hearty virtuosity in Dmitri Shostakovich’s Cello Concerto. In addition, the German-Israeli orchestra offers a rarely-heard work, Symphony No. 2 by the German-Jewish composer Kurt Weill, written in Paris in 1934, the first year of his exile. Last but not least, we look forward to a brand-new work by the young Israeli composer Ziv Cojocaru, commissioned especially for the orchestra.
Mitschnitt
The concert will be recorded and broadcast nationally by Deutschlandradio Kultur. The date of the broadcast is August 7, 2015, 20:03-22:00 pm. In Berlin via UKW 89.6, DAB+ and cable.