A Feast of Music: the 2009 Audi Summer Concerts

INGOLSTADT, GERMANY – April 20, 2009: The Audi Summer Concerts celebrate their twentieth season in 2009. The jubilee program, with “A Feast of Music” as its motto, guarantees musical enjoyment at the highest level, with international stars, famous orchestras, sought-after chamber-music ensembles and up-and-coming classical musical talent to be seen and heard in Ingolstadt.

Audi has more than one reason to celebrate in 2009: The brand itself can look back on a hundred years of eventful history and has, with its Summer Concerts, shaped the classical music scene in Ingolstadt for the past twenty years. What better excuse could there be for a festival program that commemorates the Summer Concerts’ own progress during this period and pays tribute to various notable personalities? 2009 is in fact a jubilee year in many respects, with the 250th anniversary of Handel’s death, the 200th anniversary of Haydn’s death and the birth of Mendelssohn, also 200 years ago.

The 2009 Summer Concerts start with a rousing ‘Festival Overture’ in Ingolstadt’s Klenze Park on July 2. As a perfect counterpart to the sound of the Audi Wind Ensemble, the French “Ephémère” pyrotechnic artists will be launching the concert program with an inaugural firework display.

The formal opening concert before a distinguished audience a day later will be given by the Bavarian State Orchestra conducted by Kent Nagano. The return of this body of musicians to Ingolstadt in this jubilee year recalls one of the most memorable events in the history of Audi’s Summer Concerts in 1966, when it was conducted by Carlos Kleiber.

On July 4 “Opus Number Zoo,” the first of two children’s programs, will be held in the museum mobile at the Audi Forum Ingolstadt, followed a few days later by the first recital with music by Mendelssohn, one of the jubilee composers. The Minguet Quartet is to play his string quartet in F minor, Op. 80, as well as string quartets by Mozart and Ruzicka (July 7).

Two orchestras from among the best ten in the world according to a survey conducted by Gramophone magazine can be heard on the weekend of July 11-12. On the Saturday the London Symphony Orchestra will be conducted by Daniel Harding in music by Schumann, Mendelssohn and Brahms, with violinist Renaud Capuçon as soloist. On the Sunday, it is the turn of the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra to visit Ingolstadt. In view of its loyal support for the Summer Concerts, an appearance by this Munich-based orchestra was a must in this jubilee season. The public can look forward to a thrilling musical experience, in particular because the soloist on this occasion is the exceptional pianist Hélène Grimaud.

Daniel Hope regards his concert with the Chamber Orchestra of Europe on July 14 as a tribute to one of the most gifted violinists of the last century, Yehudi Menuhin, who himself appeared at the Summer Concerts several times. The program will consist of music that inspired Menuhin or was associated with him throughout his artistic life.

On July 15 the audience will be able to hear the ‘kammerorchesterbasel’ (Basel Chamber Orchestra), a body of musicians noted for its virtuoso performances. The program centers on works by Joseph Haydn, together with Mozart and the contemporary composer HK Gruber, who conducts the concert. The soloist and star of the evening is Vesselina Kasarova, one of the most widely acclaimed mezzo-sopranos of our day.

At the start of his career, Arcadi Volodos was hailed as the “new Horowitz.” Twenty years after the latter’s death, Volodos is to give a solo recital in the Festival Hall (July 22). The next event in the Summer Concerts program is devoted once again to very young listeners (July 25). To celebrate the landing on the moon forty years ago, the Festival has commissioned a musical story from outer space for children.

Guests on July 19 are the Czech Philharmonic Choir from Brno, winner of an ECHO Classics award in 2007, and the Brno Philharmonic. They join forced for a performance of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony in the Klenze Park – a worthy occasion on which to celebrate the centenary of the Audi brand. A birthday gift for the audience too: entry to this concert is free.

For many years, baroque chamber music has been a feature of the Summer Concerts held in Leitheim. This season, London Baroque can be heard on July 25 and 26. This British ensemble specializes in the music of Henry Purcell, who was born 350 years ago, and his contemporaries.

In July last year, the Audi Youth Choir Academy provided the Summer Concerts’ biggest surprise with an inspiring performance. The 70 young people will be demonstrating the same dedicated high standard in this year’s summer project. On July 26 they will be joined by Ingolstadt’s Georgian Chamber Orchestra in the “Hymn of Praise” anthem from Mendelssohn’s Symphony No. 2. The Singphoniker (July 28) and the Petersen Quartet with Christiane Oelze (July 30) will also be including music by this deeply romantic composer.

The final events are completely devoted to Georg Friedrich Handel. In the first of these counter-tenor Jörg Waschinski, an exceptional artist not only for the pitch of his voice, sings various arias by this composer accompanied by the Georgian Chamber Orchestra (August 1). Then on August 2, as a resounding climax to this year’s four-week Summer Concert season, artists from the Salzburg Festival will be heard in Handel’s “Theodora,” with the Freiburg Baroque Orchestra conducted by Ivor Bolton and Christine Schäfer singing the title role.