Monday, August 3, 2009

Marlboro/Moritzburg?

The Moritzburg Festival under the artistic direction of cellist Jan Vogler was founded in 1993 by Kai Vogler, Peter Bruns and Jan Vogler. All three artists had been participants in the famous Marlboro Festival in the USA several times and were looking for an opportunity to establish a similar concept in the German federal state of Saxony—Moritzburg Castle near Dresden appeared to be the ideal setting to carry out this ambitious project. The Moritzburg Castle now welcomes one of the world’s most prestigious chamber music festivals. This year John Harbison will be composer in residence and amongst others Fanfare and Reflection, Abu Ghraib and Piano Trio will be performed on August 18 and 19 2009 in the presence of the composer.

The festival takes place every year in August. During two weeks soloists from all over the world concentrate on works of chamber music and perform them in concerts at the end. The number of artists amounts to 25 every year, from countries like USA, Japan, China, Canada, Israel, England, Russia, Italy, Austria, Switzerland and Germany. Covering the whole range of chamber music literature, the programmes of the festival deal with contemporary music on an extensive scale as well. Since 1997 resident composers have included Wolfgang Rihm, Thomas Adès, Mark-Anthony Turnage, Esa-Pekka Salonen, Steven Stucky, Gustavo Beytelmann, Jörg Widmann, Helmut Oehring, Iris ter Schiphorst, Steffen Schleiermacher, Chen Yi and Zhou Long.

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