Mensch, Musik! #6 – Return to the Unknown

The 2024/25 season sees Ruth Reinhardt conduct orchestras on four continents, making her debut in Asia with both the Seoul Philharmonic and Hong Philharmonic, and in South America, with the Orquesta Sinfonica Estado Sao Paulo (OSESP). She begins the season at the Lucerne Festival conducting a programme celebrating the centennial of Pierre Boulez with the Lucerne Festival Contemporary Orchestra. Ruth debuts with symphony orchestras in Bamberg, Nuernberg, Beethovenhalle Bonn, Netherlands Radio Philharmonic, and the Residentie Orchestra in the Hague, and returns to the Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester Berlin, Stockholm Philharmonic and Malmö Symphony Orchestra. In the US, Ruth conducts the Rhode Island Philharmonic as Music Director Designate, and makes debut appearances with the St Louis Symphony and Charlotte Symphony. She also returns to the Milwaukee and San Diego symphony orchestras.

Programmatically, Ruth’s interests have led her toward an in-depth exploration of contemporary repertoire, leading the symphonic and orchestral world into the 21st century. Strongly centered on European composers, with significant emphasis on women composers of the second half of the 20th century and early 21st century, she brings new names and fresh faces to many orchestras for the first time. Among those whose works appear often in her progams are Grażyna Bacewicz, Kaija Saariaho, Lotta Wennäkoski, Daniel Bjarnason, Dai Fujikura, and Thomas Adès. Parallel programming can be complementary or contrasting, from the classic moderns such as Lutosławski, Bartok, Stravinsky, and Hindemith, or core composers of the symphonic canon – e.g. Brahms, Rachmaninoff, Dvořák.

In recent seasons, Ruth has made an important series of symphonic debuts in North America with the New York Philharmonic, Cleveland Orchestra, and symphony orchestras of San Francisco, Detroit, Houston, Baltimore, Milwaukee, and Seattle. In Europe, her appearances have been no less impressive – the Orchestre National de France, Frankfurt Radio Symphony, Tonkünstler Orchester, Royal Stockholm Philharmonic, and Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester Berlin.

Since 2007, tauchgold (Heike Tauch and Florian Goldberg) have been realising pieces at the interface between radio and stage. Their work includes social satires, historical dramas and philosophical themes. However, specially composed music always plays a central role. In 2019, their stage work “The Glassing Sea. A Narratorio for Strings and Voices”, which was created with a composition by Cathy Milliken based on the radio piece “Metamorphosen”, premiered in Munich in 2019. For “Geborgte Landschaft. A Narratorio for Piano Trio and Voices”, the composer Dai Fujikura wrote the music (2022). The English stage version “BORROWED LANDSCAPE” premiered in New York in 2023 and will tour the US from 2024. Since 2022, tauchgold have been realising the RSB series “Mensch, Musik!” as an author-director team.

His voice surprises with its bright clarity and fascinates with its intensity: Georg Rudiger has acclaimed its “radiance about which one can only marvel…” (Badische Zeitung) and Richard Lorber has celebrated its “irritatingly-beautiful, bell-clean naivety” (WDR3 Opernblog).

Soprano Philipp Mathmann is one of the most sought-after countertenors in the world today. During the course of his still-young career he has taken on numerous leading roles in highly-acclaimed productions such as Anastasio in “Giustino” (Handel), Abel in “Cain and Abel” (Scarlatti), Mirtillo in “Il pastor fido” and La Bellezza in “Il Trionfo del Tempo e del Disinganno” (Handel). These productions attracted national attention and were nominated for notable prizes, such as the Faust Prize and the Golden Mask Award. Mathmann’s opera engagements have taken him to the Teatro Real Madrid, the Aalto-Theater Essen, the Theater an der Wien, the Stanislawski Theater Moscow and numerous other renowned music festivals.

Mathmann does not just limit himself to baroque repertoire. In 2021/22, for example, he sang the part of the Angel at the Semperoper Dresden in the world premiere of Thorsten Rasch’s “Die andere Frau”, and the part of the Scorpion Man in Jörg Widmann’s opera “Babylon” at the Staatstheater Wiesbaden. Mathmann has worked in concert with some of the most renowned early music ensembles, such as the Freiburger Barockorchester, the Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin, Concerto Köln and conductors such as Christophe Rousset, Gianluca Capuano and Diego Fasolis. His first CD (“La deposizione dalla croce di Gesu Cristo” by F. X. Richter) was released in 2017 and was followed in 2020 by his first solo CD (“Tormenti d’Amore”) which featured 3 world premiere recordings.

Born in Zurich, David Nebel began playing the violin at the age of five. He first attended the conservatory in Zurich and later studied with Boris Kuschnir in Vienna and Yair Kless in Graz. David then continued his studies at the Royal College of Music in London with Professor Alexander Gilman as a Leverhulme Arts Scholar. In 2021 he won the prestigious Emily Anderson Prize of the Royal Philharmonic Society in London. David Nebel was a member of the LGT Young Soloists, a string ensemble of highly talented young musicians led by Alexander Gilman.

Nebel has also been a guest soloist at renowned festivals, including the Khachaturian Festival in Armenia, the Kissinger Sommer in Germany, where he performed the world premiere of Gediminas Gelgotas’ Violin Concerto, and the Pärnu Music Festival in Estonia as part of the Järvi Academy. He has also performed at concerts organized by the Orpheum Foundation in Switzerland. Highlights of recent seasons include performances and recordings with the Südwestdeutsches Kammerorchester, the Orchestre Philharmonique Royal de Liège and the Lithuanian National Symphony Orchestra.

In 2020, David Nebel released his first solo CD album with conductor Kristjan Järvi on the Sony Classical label. Together with the London Symphony Orchestra and the Baltic Sea Philharmonic, he recorded the Violin Concerto No. 1 by Philip Glass and the Violin Concerto by Igor Stravinksy. The album received excellent reviews from the international press, including Strad Magazine and Bayerischer Rundfunk.

David Nebel has been concertmaster of the Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester Berlin since January 2023.
Nebel plays on a violin by Antonio Stradivari, which was provided by a private sponsor.

Nadine Contini, principal second violin, has been a member of the Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester Berlin since March 2005.

She was born in 1979 in Saarbrücken and received her first violin lessons at the age of 5 years with Ms Christa Schmitt-Rink. Later she studied under Ulrieke Dierick. In 1996 she was admitted to the Pflüger-Stiftung Freiburg and the Spohr-Akademie for the promotion of highly gifted young violinists, where she was trained by Wolfgang Marschner and Ariane Mathäus. In 2000, she began her studies at the Musikhochschule “Hanns Eisler” in Berlin with Antje Weithaas, where she graduated with the concert exam of 2008. She attended master classes with Antje Weithaas, Wolfgang Marschner, Christian Tetzlaff, Guy Braunstein, and Boris Pergamenchikov.

Nadine Contini has won awards in numerous competitions: In 1998, she was awarded with the first “Young Musicians” federal prize. In addition, she received a second prize at the International Max Reger Competition and a special prize for the best interpretation of a solo work by Max Reger. In 2004, she won the competition of Ibolyka-Gyarfas-Stiftung. She was awarded with prizes for cultural promotion by the Casino Gesellschaft Saarbrücken and the Saarländischen Rundfunk. In addition, she was the prize winner and scholarship holder of the Deutsche Stiftung Musikleben.

As a soloist, she has performed with the Landesjugendorchester of Saarland, the Cairo Chamber Orchestra, the Cairo Opera Orchestra, the Deutsche Spohr Philharmonie, the Symphonieorchester des Saarländischen Rundfunks as part of the concerts of young artists, the Max Bruch Philharmonie and the Brandenburger Symphoniker.

Nadine Contini plays a violin made by master violinmaker Stefan-Peter Greiner from Bonn and is involved as a mentor in the orchestra academy of the Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester Berlin.

Alejandro Regueira Caumel, born in 1991 in Málaga/Spain, began playing the violin and piano at the age of six. In Madrid, he studied with Anna Baget and moved to Dionisio Rodríguez as a violist in 2008. In 2009 he came to Germany and studied at the Hochschule für Musik “Hanns Eisler” with Pauline Sachse and Tabea Zimmermann. Master classes with Wilfried Strehle, Andreas Willwohl, Roberto Díaz, Felix Schwartz and Jean Sulem complemented his education.

Chamber music has been a particular focus of his career to date. He participated in the chamber music festival of the “Kronberg Academy” and in the “Seiji Ozawa International Academy Switzerland”, performed repeatedly with the Frielinghaus Ensemble and can be heard regularly at chamber music festivals such as the “Festival Ribeira Sacra” or in the Nikolaisaal Potsdam. He also won first prizes at various competitions, including the “Concurso Ibérico de Música de Cámara con Arpa” (in duo with harpist Maud Edenwald), the XII. International Competition for Viola and Cello “Villa de Llanes”, at the “Concurso María Cristina” for young soloists and at the competition of “Jeunesses Musicales” in Spain.

Alejandro Regueira Caumel gained orchestral experience as a member of the Gustav Mahler Youth Orchestra and the Spanish National Youth Orchestra, as well as through substitute work with the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra and as principal violist with the Bamberg Symphony Orchestra, the NDR Radiophilharmonie Hannover, the NDR Elbphilharmonie Orchestra, the Philharmonia Orchestra London, the Orquestra de la Comunitat Valenciana and the Orquesta Nacional de España.

From 2010 to 2012 he was an academist with the Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester Berlin and has been its principal violist since 2015.

Hans-Jakob Eschenburg received his first cello lessons at the Rostock Conservatory. After studying with Josef Schwab at the Hochschule für Musik “Hanns Eisler” Berlin, he was principal cellist of the Leipzig Radio Symphony Orchestra from 1984 to 1988.

With the renowned Petersen Quartet, of which he was a founding member until 2000, he won several international competitions (Prague, Evian, Florence, Munich) and appeared on the major concert stages and at numerous festivals in Europe, North and South America, Asia and Australia. Several of the Petersen Quartet’s numerous CD recordings have won international awards.

Since 1999 Hans-Jakob Eschenburg has been principal cellist of the Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester Berlin. He held the same position in the chamber orchestra “Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach”. He frequently appears as a soloist and chamber musician, including as a member of various chamber ensembles such as the Gideon Klein Trio. Hans-Jakob Eschenburg teaches as an honorary professor at the Hochschule für Musik “Hanns Eisler” Berlin. He is also involved as a mentor of the Orchestra Academy of the Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester Berlin.

Mohamed Gamal is an Egyptian trombone player. He is a graduate of the Cairo Conservatoire in Egypt and the Barenboim-Said Akademie in Berlin. At the early age of 17, while completing his studies, he joined the Cairo Symphony Orchestra as a Co-Principal Trombone. In 2010 he won the First Prize at the 9th International Summer Festival in Egypt. He toured extensively throughout the Middle East, South America, Europe, Africa and Asia During 2011 to 2015 he played several solo concerts with the Cairo Symphony Orchestra. 2013, he was honoured to join the West Eastern Divan Orchestra, conducted by Daniel Barenboim, and he has since been playing with West-Eastern Divan Orchestra around the world. In 2015, he joined the Barenboim-Said Academy in Berlin where he studied with Prof. Stefan Schulz and Filipe Alves and graduated in 2019.

Richard Scott is a composer and improvisor residing in Berlin, who has been navigating the nether regions of free improvisation, jazz and avant-garde composition for some four decades. For the last few years he has been mostly focused on developing a personal and quite visceral approach to the compositional and improvisational possibilities of modular synthesis, working with collaborators including Audrey Chen, Kazuhisa Uchihashi, Phil Minton, Axel Dörner, Jon Rose, Shelley Hirsch, Thomas Lehn, Michael Vorfeld, Ute Wassermann, Jan Croonenbroeck and the Seicento Vocale choir, Trio Abstrakt, Pitchshifting Group,Richard Barrett, Evan Parker and Frank Gratkowski. He creates solo electronic compositions and performs in many ensembles, including many performances at international festivals and conferences such as Moers Music, Wels Music Unlimited, Festival International de Musique Actuelle de Victoriaville, Bratislava Next Festival of Advanced Music, London Jazz Festival, Nickelsdorf Konfrontationen, ICMC (International Computer Music Conference), Impakt Berlin, SMC (Sound Music Computing), Berliner Festspiele Immersion, Ulrichsberger Kaleidophon, Ars Electronica Forum Wallis and the Tokyo Electroacoustic Music Festival.

He is the author of several articles on the subjects of free improvisation, modular synthesis and post-acousmatic music, and he recently edited an issue of eContact! journal dedicated to analogue and modular synthesis. He currently leads the Masters Degree in Creative Production at Catalyst Institute for Creative Arts and Technology in Berlin.

Gustavo Llano was born in Medellín, Colombia. He studied theatre at the EPA (Escuela Popular de Arte de Medellín, now ITM) and visual arts at the University of Antioquia before finally turning to dance. His dance teachers included Jorge Holguín, Álvaro Restrepo, Beatriz Gutiérrez, Peter Palacio, Silvia Rolz.
Since 1998 Gustavo Llano has been living in Berlin in self-exile, as he calls it. Like many other dancers of his generation, he left the country because of the violence. The final straw was the murder of his friend and teacher José Manuel Freidel, a visionary of socially critical Colombian theatre.
In Germany, Gustavo Llano first danced in Ismael Ivo’s company. Through him he met Johann Kresnik, with whom he worked for several years, first as a dancer and later as artistic assistant. With Kresnik he staged, among others, Plan Vía in Bogotá, a choreographic reflection on Colombia’s present, and Die Fledermaus for the Wuppertal Opera. His own choreographic works include Tchaikovsky’s Queen of Spades for the Los Angeles Opera as well as the pieces Agua, Zeitlos, Cinco Danzas Cotidianas , Nadie en el Mundo es Eterno, La Fiesta and many others, which he has staged in Europe, the USA and Latin America.
Gustavo Llano’s work is oriented towards the idea of choreographic theatre, which differs from dance theatre in its political motifs as well as its socially critical content and seeks the greatest possible expression with the simplest, most everyday means.

Translated with www.DeepL.com/Translator (free version)

Inka Löwendorf grew up in Berlin and learnt about the stage at an early age at the Deutsche Oper Berlin, where she studied ballet. After graduating from high school, she studied acting at the Max Reinhardt Seminar in Vienna. This was followed by engagements at the Staatstheater Mainz, the Berliner Ensemble and the Volksbühne Berlin. In 2009, she founded Heimathafen Neukölln, an interdisciplinary theatre in the Berlin district of the same name, together with partners. She performs and directs there.

Inka Löwendorf is fluent in Dutch, English and Spanish, but speaks a fair amount of French and Italian. She regularly records features and radio plays for Deutschland Radio, RBB and MDR, and reads audio books. She regularly appears as an actress in front of the camera for public broadcasters. She is also a lecturer for voice and breathing at the Macromedia University of Applied Sciences.