Together with the NDR Bigband and the Chorwerk Ruhr, we will start the new season on September 21st and 22nd at the Ruhrtriennale and on October 1st in cooperation with the Musica Festival Strasbourg at the Pfaffenholz Sports Centre, Saint-Louis.
We will open our first season under our new Principal Conductor Titus Engel with a spectacular, large-scale program of captivating music.
The program features works that explore the tension between contemporary classical music and jazz: Sofia Gubaidulina's "Revue Music for Symphony Orchestra and Jazz Band" (1976/1995/2002), the world premiere of Michael Wertmüller's "Shlimazl for Symphony Orchestra and Big Band" (2023), and Simon Steen-Andersen's "TRIO for Orchestra, Big Band, Choir and Video" (2019).
Big bands and symphony orchestras are like penguins and polar bears – they (almost) never meet. Nevertheless, the program could also be described as "Back to the Roots." With their diverse connections between jazz and classical music, the presented works hark back to the beginnings of jazz and the dawn of modernity around 1900.
For the Russian composer Sofia Gubaidulina, the appeal lies precisely in the strangeness of these two worlds: With its quirky and bizarre mix of Orthodox singing and Russian sound poetry, jazz and symphonic music, as well as American Hollywood, disco and big band sound, the revue music one of the masterpieces of subversive Moscow Conceptualism.
Michael Wertmüller from Thun, Switzerland, also frequently faced prejudice for his fusion of contemporary classical music and jazz. As a percussionist, he performed in symphony orchestras and big bands, collaborating with numerous jazz musicians, including Peter Brötzmann, who passed away in June and to whom he dedicates his new work, "Shlimazl." In contrast to Gubaidulina's collage-like revue music, Wertmüller's piece blends symphony orchestra and big band into an organic whole. Commissioned by the Basel Sinfonietta, Wertmüller brings these worlds together in this work, demonstrating how complexity and coolness can be effortlessly combined.
The Danish composer Simon Steen-Andersen, closely associated with the Basel Sinfonietta and teaching in Switzerland, combines the various ensembles in his "Trio" for symphony orchestra, vocal ensemble, and big band with historical audiovisual material to create a fantastical time machine. He places both contemporary ensembles and those from the SWR archive, which are linked via video, at the service of his exuberant playfulness.
We look forward to the upcoming season with music that's right on trend!
