Jörg Widmann conducts Mozart & Widmann

Jörg Widmann is one of the most exciting and versatile artists of his generation.

In the past 2023/24 season, he could once again be experienced worldwide in all his facets, both as a clarinettist, conductor and composer, including as Composer in Residence with the Berliner Philharmoniker and the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra, as Principal Guest Conductor of the NDR Radiophilharmonie, Guest Conductor of the Mozarteum Orchestra Salzburg, Associated Conductor of the Munich Chamber Orchestra, Creative Partner of the Deutsche Radio Philharmonie, Artistic Partner of the Riga Sinfonietta and Artist in Focus at the Alte Oper Frankfurt.

Jörg Widmann has expanded his activities as a conductor in particular this season. He made his debut as a conductor with the Berliner Philharmoniker and performed with the Bamberg Symphony Orchestra, the SWR Symphony Orchestra, BBC Scottish, Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra, Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra and the Juilliard Orchestra New York, among others.

Long-standing chamber music partners such as Clemens Hagen, Carolin Widmann, Nicolas Altstaedt, Sarah Aristidou, Denis Kozhukhin and the Hagen Quartet have performed with Jörg Widmann at the Schubertiade Schwarzenberg, the Berlin Philharmonie, Wigmore Hall London, Alte Oper Frankfurt, Pierre Boulez Saal Berlin and the Auditorio Nacional de Música Madrid.

Widmann premiered the clarinet concerto by Mark Andre at the Donaueschinger Musiktage 2015. Other clarinet concertos dedicated to him and written for him include Wolfgang Rihm’s Music for Clarinet and Orchestra (1999) and Aribert Reimann’s Cantus (2006).

Trained by Gerd Starke in Munich and Charles Neidich at the Juilliard School in New York, Jörg Widmann himself was a professor of clarinet and composition at the Freiburg University of Music. Widmann has held a chair in composition at the Barenboim-Said Akademie Berlin since 2017. He was a fellow of the Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin and is a member of the Bavarian Academy of Fine Arts, the Freie Akademie der Künste Hamburg (2007) and the Akademie der Wissenschaften und der Literatur Mainz (2016) and received an honorary doctorate from the University of Limerick, Ireland, in February 2023.

Jörg Widmann studied composition with Kay Westermann, Wilfried Hiller, Hans Werner Henze and Wolfgang Rihm. His work has been honored many times, most recently with the renowned Bach Prize of the Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg, as well as the Music Prize of the City of Munich.

Conductors such as Daniel Barenboim, Daniel Harding, Kent Nagano, Franz Welser-Möst, Christian Thielemann, Iván Fischer, Andris Nelsons and Sir Simon Rattle regularly perform his music. Orchestras such as the Vienna and Berlin Philharmonic, New York Philharmonic, Concertgebouw Orchestra Amsterdam, Cleveland Orchestra, Orchestre de Paris, London Symphony Orchestra and many others have premiered his music and regularly include it in their concert repertoire.

The world of glass sounds opened up to Christa Schönfeldinger in the early nineties. After studying violin in Vienna, she first embarked on an orchestral career. Then it was a music puzzle in a daily newspaper, of all things, that drew her and her husband Gerald’s attention to a very special instrument: the glass harmonica. It would determine the course of her artistic life and eventually lead to the founding of the Vienna Glass Harmonica Duo.

Today, Christa Schönfeldinger is one of the world’s leading glass harmonica virtuosos. She has not only been able to take the traditional historical playing techniques to a new level, but has also expanded the playing of the glass harmonica with new techniques and contemporary musical aesthetics to achieve unimagined tonal effects. Her repertoire ranges from the standard works for glass harmonica (Mozart, Reichardt, Röllig, Schulz) to orchestral and operatic literature (Hasse, Donizetti, R. Strauss, Saint-Saëns) and numerous arrangements from the classical to the avant-garde.

Her interpretations have inspired contemporary composers to create new works, such as Jörg Widmann’s “Armonica” with the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra under Pierre Boulez, which was premiered at the International Mozart Week Salzburg. Numerous invitations as soloist and chamber musician led her to the opening of the Elbphilharmonie Hamburg, Musikverein Vienna, Salzburg Festival, Int. Mozartwoche Salzburg, PROMS Festival Royal Albert Hall, Schleswig Holstein Festival, Carinthischer Sommer, Int. Haydn Tage Eisenstadt, Philharmonie Berlin, Dresdner Musikfestspiele, Bayreuth, Warsaw Autumn, Warsaw Philharmonic, Dresden Philharmonic, Kennedy Center Suntory Hall Tokyo and others.

Collaborations with the Vienna and Berlin Philharmonics, Vienna Symphony Orchestra, BBC Philharmonic Orchestra, New Philharmonic Orchestra Tokyo, National Symphony Orchestra Washington, Orchestre de l’Opéra national de Paris, Orchestre de la Suisse Romande, Dresdner Philharmonie, NDR and hr- Symphonie Orchester, Bruckner Orchester Linz, under Daniel Barenboim, Kirill Petrenko, Pierre Boulez, Kent Nagano, Christoph Eschenbach, Franz Welser-Möst, Christoph Thielemann, Fabio Luisi, Sylvain Camberling, John Axelrod, Paavo Järvi and others.