Choriner Musiksommer 2019

Vladimir Jurowski is one of the most sought-after conductors of our time, enjoying international acclaim for his outstanding musical ability and a consistently adventurous artistic approach. He has been Chief Conductor and Artistic Director of the Berlin Radio Symphony Orchestra (RSB) since September 2017. He was born in Moscow, where he began his musical education at the conservatoire. In 1990, he and his family moved to Germany, where he completed his studies at the colleges of music in Dresden and Berlin. His international debut was at the Wexford festival as well as the Royal Opera House Covent Garden in 1995.

Vladimir Jurowski was appointed Principal Guest Conductor of the London Philharmonic Orchestra in 2003, becoming its Principal Conductor in 2007. In addition, he is Artistic Director of the Russian Academic State Orchestra “Yevgeny Svetlanov”, Principal Artist of the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, and Artistic Advisor to the “ensemble unitedberlin”. In 2015 he was also appointed Artistic Director of the George Enescu Festival in Bucharest. It was announced in March 2018 that he is to become Generalmusikdirektor of the Bavarian State Opera as from the 2021/2022 season. In the past he has held positions including First Kapellmeister of the Komische Oper Berlin (1997-2000) and Musical Director of Glyndebourne Festival Opera (2001-2013). In March 2016 he was awarded an honorary doctorate by the Royal College of Music in London.

Vladimir Jurowski conducts top orchestras in Europe and North America, such as the Dresdner Staatskapelle, the Gewandhaus Orchestra Leipzig, the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra Amsterdam, the Boston, Cleveland and Philadelphia orchestras, and the New York Philharmonic, as well as the Berlin and Vienna philharmonic orchestras. He also appears regularly at international festivals such as the BBC Proms, and since 1995 he has worked at major international opera houses, incl. at the Metropolitan Opera New York, the Welsh National Opera, the Scala in Milan, the Bolshoi Theatre, and the Dresden Semper Opera.

He returned to Glyndebourne Opera in 2017 for the world premiere of Brett Dean’s “Hamlet” and shortly afterwards he made his debut at Salzburg Festival with Alban Berg’s “Wozzeck”. In 2018 he conducted new productions of Modest Mussorgsky’s “Boris Godunov” at the Opéra National de Paris and Franz Schreker’s “Die Gezeichneten” at Zurich Opera House.

His extensive, frequently prizewinning discography now includes three recordings with the RSB for PENTATONE, interpreting works by Schnittke, Mahler, Strauss, Hindemith and Britten.

Soprano Chen Reiss performed leading parts at the Vienna State Opera, Bavarian State Opera, Théâtre des Champs-Élysées, Teatro alla Scala, Semperoper Dresden, Deutsche Oper Berlin, Hamburg State Opera, De Nederlandse Opera Amsterdam,Wiener Festwochen, Maggio Musicale Fiorentino, Opera Company of Philadelphia and the Israeli Opera.

In 2016 She sang Morgana (Alcina) under Marc Minkowski at the Vienna State Opera, as well as Gretel and Sophie (Der Rosenkavalier). With the Vienna Philharmonic under the baton of Zubin Mehta, she sang a gala concert for Suntory Hall 30th Anniversary. In the same year Ms. Reiss also made her debut with the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra under Daniele Gatti and sang Marzelline (Fidelio) with the Israel Philharmonic. In 2017 she will sing Zdenka (Arabella) and Marzelline (Fidelio) at the Vienna State Opera, Liu (Turandot) with the Israel Philharmonic, as well as  concerts with the Chicago Symphony, Munich Philharmonic and Lucerne symphony. She will perform at the London Proms, Lucerne Festival, SHMF and many more. Her debut at the Royal Opera House under Antonio Pappano is planned for 2018.

In December 2014 Chen Reiss was invited to sing for Pope Francis during the Christmas Mass, which was broadcast worldwide. Accompanied by the Berlin Philharmonic and Sir Simon Rattle, Ms. Reiss sang the soundtrack to the film “Perfume”. A frequent soloist at important concert venues worldwide, Ms. Reiss sang with distinguished conductors such as: Daniel Barenboim, Christoph Eschenbach, Daniele Gatti, Daniel Harding, Manfred Honeck, Marek Janowski, Paavo Järvi, James Levine, Zubin Mehta, Mark Minkowski, Jonathan Nott, Donald Runnicles, Jeffrey Tate, Christian Thielemann and Franz Welser-Möst.

She performed concerts at the Salzburg, Ludwigsburg, Rheingau and Lucerne Festivals, as well as in Carnegie Hall, Vienna’s Musikverein and Palais des Beaux-Arts in Brussels. Other concert appearances include: Vienna Philharmonic, Staatskapelle Berlin, Gewandhausorchester Leipzig, Radio Symphony Orchestra Berlin, Tonhalle Düsseldorf, Laeiszhalle Hamburg, Philharmonie Berlin, Concerto Köln, Schleswig-Holstein Musik Festival, Mozarteum Orchestra Salzburg, Orchestre de Paris, Orchestre National de France, Pittsburgh Symphony and Dallas Symphony, among others.

Her operatic repertoire includes: Gilda (Rigoletto), Adina (L’elisir d’amore), Amina (LA Sonnambula), Nannetta (Falstaff), Oscar (Un ballo in maschera), Marie (La fille du régiment), Sophie (Der Rosenkavalier), Zdenka (Arabella), Rosina (Il barbiere di Siviglia), Pamina (Die Zauberflöte), Ilia (Idomeneo), Servilia (La clemenza di Tito), Susanna (Le nozze di Figaro), Konstanze (Die Entfuehrung aus dem Serail), Zerlina (Don Giovanni), Euridice (Orfeo ed Euridice), Adele (Die Fledermaus), and the title role in Das Schlaue Füchslein.

Her solo album, LIAISONS, won the Diapason D’or in 2011. On her latest album “Le Rossignol et la Rose” Chen Reiss presents a romantic compilation of songs with distinguished pianist Charles Spencer.

Topi Lehtipuu enjoys a reputation as one of Finland’s most highly individual artists. In addition to a career as a tenor of international renown, Topi also enjoys a career as artistic consultant and curator. He was Director of the Helsinki Festival from 2015 to 2018, a wide-ranging and innovative multi-arts festival and a major event in Finland’s cultural year. He was also artistic director of Turku Music Festival from 2010 to 2015, as well as of Joroinen Music Days, a chamber music festival in eastern Finland.

As a singer, Topi has appeared in concert halls and opera houses throughout the world. An extremely versatile artist and a highly-skilled stage performer, he is renowned equally for repertoire ranging from early music, through Bach, Mozart and classical composers, to contemporary creations enjoying close relationships with the world’s leading conductors and directors.

Highlights in 2018-19 include the creation of the role of The Creature in Frankenstein, a new opera by Mark Gray, commissioned by La Monnaie/De Munt; Dionysus in Henze’s DieBassariden in Berlin’s Komische Oper, directed by Barrie Kosky and conducted by Vladimir Jurowski, as well as the creation of a multi-disciplinary dance and vocal project with the renowned Tero Saarinen Dance Company, featuring music by Monteverdi.

„Baritone Dietrich Henschel is a towering figure, physically, intellectually, musically and theatrically. His prowess as an interpreter, by which I mean precisely his ability to get below the surface of a song and right into its soul, is extraordinary.” Herald Scotland Baritone

Dietrich Henschel captivates audiences as a regular guest at major opera houses, an esteemed interpreter of lieder and oratorios as well as with his multimedia vocal music projects. His repertoire stretches from Monteverdi to the avant-garde.

Born in Berlin and having grown up in Nuremberg, he made his debut in 1990 at the Munich Biennale for New Music and first became known internationally from 1997, following a period as an ensemble member of the Opera Kiel. At the Deutsche Oper Berlin he took the title role in Hans Werner Henze’s Prinz von Homburg, staged by Götz Friedrich, and he made an outstanding lead performance in Busoni’s Doktor Faust at the Opéra de Lyon and the Théâtre du Châtelet in Paris, for which he was awarded a Grammy.

The singer’s major roles include Rossini’s Figaro, Wolfram in Wagner’s Tannhäuser, Monteverdi’s Ulisse and Orfeo, Mozart’s Don Giovanni, Beckmesser in  agner’s Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg, Alban Berg’s Wozzeck and Dr. Schön in Lulu, Golaud in Debussy’s Pelléas et Mélisande and Nick Shadow in Stravinsky’s The Rake’s Progress. He makes regular appearances with these roles at the major European opera houses in cities including Paris, Berlin, Amsterdam, Florence, Munich, Hamburg, Zürich and Brussels. Contemporary composers such as Péter Eötvös, Detlev Glanert, Manfred Trojahn, Unsuk Chin, Peter Ruzicka and José-Maria Sanchez-Verdu have all dedicated leading operatic roles in their operas to the baritone.

In addition to his operatic work, Dietrich Henschel is committed to the performance of lieder and concert works for voice. In orchestral concerts he has worked with great conductors such as Riccardo Chailly, Kent Nagano, Sylvain Cambreling and Riccardo Muti. His collaborations with John Eliot Gardiner, Philippe Herreweghe, Nikolaus Harnoncourt and Colin Davis is documented on numerous oratorio recordings. Dietrich Henschel has a particular focus on theatrical and multimedia presentations of vocal music. He has performed staged versions of Schubert lieder cycles at the Théâtre la Monnaie, Theater an der Wien, Den Norske Opera Oslo and the Komische Oper Berlin, among others. In the project IRRSAL – Triptychon einer verbotenen Liebe, featuring the orchestral songs of Hugo Wolf, he combined film and live concert; his most recent project featuring songs by Gustav Mahler, WUNDERHORN, was also a collaboration with director Clara Pons, and was developed as a co-production between several European partners including De Doelen, La Monnaie
and the BBC Symphony Orchestra London.

The current season began with three concerts at the Jerusalem Chamber Music Festival, where Dietrich Henschel performed selections of Mahler’s Rückert-Lieder and biblical songs by Dvořák with the pianist Shai Wosner. Following this he gave a performance of Haydn’s The Creation with the
Tokyo Metropolitan Symphony Orchestra and the Swedish Radio Choir under the direction of Kazushi Ono. Another highlight was a tour with the Orchestre des Champs-Élysées under Philippe Herreweghe with Hugo Wolf’s orchestral songs and Mahler’s Rückert-Lieder. At the opening concert of the Oxford Lieder Festival he performed Mahler’s Lied von der Erde with the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment; he subsequently went on to perform at the opening concert of Wien Modern, where he took the part of Jean Charles in Hans Werner Henze’s Floß der Medusa under the direction of Cornelius Meister.

In November he will tour Asia with the Choir of the Society of the Friends of Music in Vienna for performances of Mozart’s Requiem and Brahms’ Ein  deutsches Requiem. Further highlights of the coming season are Schoenberg’s A Survivor from Warsaw and Beethoven’s 9th Symphony with the Berlin Radio Symphony Orchestra under Vladimir Jurowski, Haydn’s The Creation with the Orchestre Philharmonique Royal de Liège under Christian Armind, a programme of music by Luigi Dallapiccola at La Monnaie, Grieg’s Peer Gynt with the Orchestre National de Lyon under Leonard Slatkin, performances of Lied von der Erde at the Beethovenfest in Warsaw and Beethoven’s 9th Symphony with the Orchestre de La Monnaie under the direction of chief conductor Alain Altinoglu.

The Vocalconsort Berlin was formed in 2003 by arts and cultural managers Volkert Uhde and Markus Schuck, and in the same year successfully debuted Monteverdi’s “L’Orfeo” at the Innsbruck Festival of Early Music under the direction of René Jacobs.

The Berlin-based ensemble specializes in music of the early and high baroque, but frequently presents romantic and contemporary works as well. The variability and flexibility of this group allows the ensemble to perform equally well as a solo quartet or a large chamber choir with multiple solo parts, thereby making the choir perfect for concert performances as well as staged productions such as opera.

The Vocalconsort’s homogeneous and dynamic sound has led the group to work together with well-known directors such as Marcus Creed, Pablo Heras-Casado, René Jacobs, Daniel Reuss, Olof Bomon and Ottavio Dantone and excellent ensembles such as the Kammerorchester Basel, the Akademie für alte Musik, Accademia Bizantina, the Sharoun Ensemble and Ensemble musikFabrik. On stage, Vocalconsort Berlin has cooperated with internationally successful directors and choreographers such as Sasha Waltz, Hans-Werner Kroesinger, Barrie Kosky and Luc Perceval.

The Vocalconsort Berlin has given guest performances at such events as the Berlin-based “zeitfenster–biennale alter musik” festival, the “Zermatt Festival” and the Berlin Staatsoper’s Cadenza baroque festival, as well as in the renowned concert halls of Antwerp and Gent, Ferrara, Amsterdam, Brussels, Tel Aviv, Barcelona, London, Paris, Vienna, the Salzburg Festival, the Handel Festival Halle, the Cité de la Musique Paris, the Rheingau Music Festival, and the Musikfest Bremen.

In 2005, the opera “Dido & Aeneas” by Henry Purcell premiered in Luxembourg starring Sasha Waltz as choreographer. The production has enjoyed international success with over 50 performances on three continents. Since 2006 the Vocalconsort Berlin has served as the house ensemble to Sasha
Waltz & Guests, the Ensemble Kaleidoskop and the Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin at the RADIALSYSTEM V venue. In 2007, the opera “Medea” by Pascal Dusapin premiered in Luxembourg starring Sasha Waltz as choreographer, with performances taking the Vocalconsort to the Netherlands and France, and even to Australia. In 2008, the Vocalconsort Berlin received the “German Record Critic’s Award” for its debut double CD “Hugo Distler – Geistliche Chormusik op. 12, Weihnachtsgeschichte op. 10” (“Hugo Distler – Sacred Choral Music opus 12, Christmas Story opus 10”). In 2009, the Vocalconsort Berlin participated in “DIALOGE 09”, a project designed by Sasha Waltz to mark the reopening of the Neues Museum Berlin. The CD “ODE for the birthday of QUEEN ANNE” with the famous “Dixit Dominus” HWV 232, which was recorded together with Andreas Scholl and the Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin
under Marcus Creed, was released by “harmonia mundi france”. In 2011, “harmonia mundi france” also released a highly acclaimed recording of Bach’s
motets, which was also conducted by Marcus Creed. In May 2011, the Vocalconsort participated in the world premiere of “Matsukaze”, an opera by Toshio Hosakawa. A Sasha Waltz production conducted by Pablo Heras-Casado, further performances have since taken place in Warsaw, Luxembourg, and at the Staatsoper im Schillertheater in Berlin. Also in May 2011, the Vocalconsort participated in the successful scenic adaptation of “Die Jahreszeiten” by Haydn at the O.T. Theater in Rotterdam, which was directed by Miriam Koen and Gerrit Timmers.

Ralf Sochaczewsky received conducting lessons under Christian Grube and Marc Piollet at the Berlin University of the Arts. Later he studied choir conducting under Jörg-Peter Weigle and orchestral conducting under Prof. Reuter at the Hochschule für Musik “Hanns Eisler”.

He directs the Berlin choir Cantus Domus, with which he won a 1st prize at the Berlin Choir Competition in 2017 and a 3rd prize at the 8th Choir Competition of the Deutscher Musikrat in Dortmund . From 1998 to 2012, he conducted the Ensemberlino Vocale choir and successfully participated in choir competitions (1st prize at Chorfest Bremen (Bremen Choir Festival) 2008).

He regularly works with choirs like the Berlin Vocalconsort, the Cappella Amsterdam, the RIAS Kammerchor, and the Berliner Rundfunkchor.

In 2016, he conducted the European premiere of the oratorio “Anthracite Fields” by Julia Wolfe, which won the Pulitzer Prize in 2015, with the DR Vocalensemble and Bang on a Can-All Stars.

Ralf Sochaczewsky has performed with orchestras such as the London Philharmonic Orchestra, the Konzerthausorchester Berlin, the National Radio Orchestra Bucharest, and the Chamber Orchestra of the Minsk Philharmonic. He conducted operas at the Bolshoi Theatre Moscow, the Komische Oper Berlin, the Opera National du Rhin, and the Lithuanian National Opera.

Ralf Sochaczewsky collaborated with various pop groups and artists such as Stargaze and André de Ridder, Bon Iver, Damien Rice, Lisa Hannigan, and Tocotronic. With Cantus Domus, he is a regular guest at festivals such as HaldernPop and KalternPop.

He teaches choral conducting at the Hochschule für Musik “Hanns Eisler”. For his great service to the Berlin choir scene, the Chorverband Berlin awarded him the Geschwister Mendelssohn Medal in 2017.