Mensch, Musik! #3 Hotspot Earth

Vladimir Jurowski has been Chief Conductor and Artistic Director of the RundfunkSinfonieorchester Berlin (RSB) since 2017. In 2023/2024, his concerts, tours and recordings were the highlights of the ‘RSB100’ anniversary season. His current contract in Berlin runs until 2027,
while he has also been General Music Director of the Bavarian State Opera in Munich since 2021.

Vladimir Jurowski, one of the most sought-after conductors of our time, who is celebrated worldwide for his innovative musical interpretations and equally for his courageous artistic commitment, was born in Moscow in 1972 and completed the first part of his music studies at the Music College of the Moscow Conservatory. He moved to Germany with his family in 1990 and continued his studies at the music academies in Dresden and Berlin. In 1995, he made his debut at the Wexford Festival in Ireland with Rimsky-Korsakov’s ‘Mainacht’ and in 1996 at the Royal Opera House Covent Garden with ‘Nabucco’. He was then First Kapellmeister of the Komische Oper Berlin (1997-2001).

Vladimir Jurowski worked as Chief Conductor of the London Philharmonic Orchestra (LPO) for fifteen years until 2021 and has since been appointed Conductor Emeritus. In the UK, he was Music Director of Glyndebourne Festival Opera from 2001 to 2013, leading a wide range of highly acclaimed productions. His close connection to British musical life was recognised by King Charles III in spring 2024 when he appointed Vladimir Jurowski an Honorary Knight Commander of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire (KBE). In April 2024, Vladimir Jurowski returned to London as a guest conductor to complete the concert performance cycle of Wagner’s ‘Ring’ with ‘Götterdämmerung’ with the LPO at the Royal Festival Hall.

He was Artistic Director of the State Academic Symphony Orchestra ‘Yevgeny Svetlanov’ of the Russian Federation until 2021 and Principal Artist of the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment in Great Britain, as well as Artistic Director of the International George Enescu Festival in Bucharest. He has also worked with the unitedberlin ensemble for many years. Vladimir Jurowski has suspended performances in Russia since February 2022. Ukrainian works are and will remain part of his repertoire, as will works by Russian composers.

Vladimir Jurowski has conducted concerts by the most important orchestras in Europe and North America, including the Berlin, Vienna and New York Philharmonics, the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra Amsterdam, the Cleveland and Philadelphia Orchestras, the Boston and Chicago symphony orchestras, the Tonhalle Orchestra Zurich, the Staatskapelle Dresden and the Gewandhaus Orchestra Leipzig. He is a regular guest at the music festivals in London, Berlin, Dresden, Lucerne, SchleswigHolstein and Grafenegg. Although Vladimir Jurowski is invited as a guest conductor by top orchestras from all over the world, he now concentrates his activities on those geographical areas that he can easily reach with reasonable effort from an ecological point of view.

The joint CD recordings by Vladimir Jurowski and the RSB began in 2015 with Alfred Schnittke’s Symphony No. 3, followed by works by Britten, Hindemith, Strauss, Mahler and again Schnittke. Vladimir Jurowski has been honoured many times for his achievements, including numerous international record awards. In 2016, he received an honorary doctorate from the Royal Philharmonic Society from the hands of the current King Charles III. In 2020, Vladimir Jurowski’s work as Artistic Director of the George Enescu Festival was honoured by the Romanian President with the Order of Cultural Merit.

Neil was born in South Africa and studied Opera and Performance in Cape Town. In Italy he won the Masters Directing Scholarship at the Verona Accademia dell’Opera, and in 2015 made his Italian debut with Mozart’s „Le Nozze di Figaro“ at the Teatro Rossini in Pesaro. From 2016 until 2019 he worked at the Hannover Staatsoper as in-house Stage Director, Costume Designer and Assistant Stage Director and in June 2018 he was the runner up in the 10th European Opera Directing Prize in Zurich, Switzerland. Since June 2019 Neil has worked as in-house Stage Director, Costume Designer and Assistant Stage Director at the Deutsche Oper Berlin and made his house debut with „Das Rheingold auf dem Parkdeck“. In May 2021 he collaborated with Babylon Orchestra to release the world premier of their first Online-Oper, “Unsere Fremden“ with Music by Mischa.

Teresa Reiber has been working as a director for music theatre since 2013. After studying cultural and theatre studies in Berlin, New York and Rennes, she has assisted Elisabeth Stöppler, Vera Nemirova, Dietrich W. Hilsdorf, Benedikt von Peter, David Hermann and Immo Karaman, among others, at the Deutsche Oper Berlin, the Semperoper Dresden and the Hessisches Staatstheater Wiesbaden and has managed more than 30 new productions and revivals. Guest appearances have taken her to the Salzburg Festival, the Beijing Music Festival and the operas in Graz, Stara Zagora and Daegu. Parallel to this, she has produced her own directorial works, including “Büchner’s Women” (premiere) and “La Calisto” (both for the Hessisches Staatstheater Wiesbaden), the mono-opera “The Diary of Anne Frank” at Atelierfrankfurt and “Pierrot Lunaire” at the Tischlerei of the Deutsche Oper Berlin. From 2016 to 2018 Teresa led the children’s club at the Deutsche Oper Berlin and worked with 8 to 12-year-olds on projects including “Donky Shot” and “Zwischenwelten”.

With the ensemble utopera she developed “Alcina” in October 2021, with the music theatre collective Fuck Marry Kill Productions Teresa conceived and staged a four-part feminist opera cycle in Berlin, premiere of the first part “The Crown of Creation” was in September 2021. For the premiere of “The Other Woman” at the Semperoper Dresden she took over the co-direction in January 2022.

Born in East Berlin, after graduating from high school she worked as a typesetter in a print shop, at various publishing houses, at the GDR Composers’ Association and for the radio. She works freelance for the RBB station Radioeins and has been a writer since 2010.

William Russell is an Australian born spatial sound designer & artist, classical percussionist, creative director and co-founder of MONOM Berlin, a spatial sound studio and exhibition space. Since opening Dec 1, 2017 at the historic Funkhaus Berlin, William has worked together with artists to produce and present over 50 new spatial sound works by a diverse range of local and international talent working across genres and disciplines, from music, to dance, to opera and theatre and recently VR and AR.

Williams focus as an artist himself is on recreating the sonic dynamics of climate phenomena and combining this with music to stimulate empathetic awareness of one’s surroundings and illuminate the link between human and nature.

Gina Lo is a Taiwanese-born sound artist, field recordist, and performer, based in Berlin. In her current research of her projects, she explores the triangular relationship between environment, ambience, and humans through live performances and spatial sound installations. Gina’s eclectic process involves electroacoustic instrumentation, field recordings, vocal performances, and custom designed synthesizers to create an ever changing and unique sound-world. The Artist’s connection with nature is strongly linked to her past experiences, She grew up on an subtropical island, and lived most of her adulthood in a state of travel in between East Asia and SouthEast Asia. During these travels the artist resonated particularly with a remote and untouched island in Southern Cambodia. There she would live a very simple off-the-grid life between the jungle and the ocean. In these periods of retreat from urbanized society, Gina would spend months observing the behavior of animals and of the elements of nature, these observations then developed into an aesthetic and experiential basis for the artist’s sonic and spatial research.

Thomas Mairs began his education in Western Canada where he studied Fine Arts at university of Victoria and soon began working in theatre. After moving to Germany in 2011 he went on to study costume design at Berlin’s UDK and received a masters in set design from Weißensee. He’s worked in numerous theatres around Germany including  München Volkstheater and Deutsches Theater in Berlin. In addition to creating set designs Mairs works as a freelance illustrator specialising in architerture and topography.

At the age of 18, Gala El Hadidi became a permanent ensemble member of the Cairo Opera. And after studying in the USA, she moved to the Semperoper Dresden and was a member of the ensemble from 2010 to 2016.

She sang under conductors such as: Christian Thielemann, Marek Janowski, Jonathan Darlington, Graeme Jenkins, Jan Willem de Vriend, Julia Jones, Omer Meir-Wellber, Asher Fisch, Stefan Lano, Piergiorgio Morandi, Christian Vasquez, Modestas Pitrenas, Alexander Joel, Cornelius Meister, Lorenzo Viotti, Constantin Trinks, Mikhal Kütson, Stefan Klingele and Rani Calderon – and with singers like: Juan-Diego Florez, Waltraud Meier, Evelyn Herlitzius and others.

Lieder recitals and concert appearances have taken her to the Berlin Philharmonie, Konzerthaus Berlin, Stuttgart Liederhalle, Auditorio Nacional di Madrid, Kennedy Center, Stavanger Konzerthus, Savonlinnasali, Musikhuset Aarhus, St. David’s Hall, Cadogan Hall in London, Qatara Opera House. Her roles at the Semperoper include. the title role in “Carmen”, Helena (“Die Schöne Helena”), Rosina (“Il barbiere di Siviglia”), Dorina (“Dorina e Nibbio”), Hänsel (“Hänsel und Gretel”), Medoro (“Orlando”), Prince Orlofsky (“Die Fledermaus”), Sylvia Varescu (“The Csardas Princess”) (“Prince Bussel”), Cherubino (“Le nozze di Figaro”), Maddalena (“Rigoletto”), Second Maid (“Elektra” & “Daphne”), Second & Third Lady (“The Magic Flute”).

El Hadidi can be heard with the Dresdner Staatskapelle on two Deutsche Grammophone CD productions: ZDF New Year’s Eve Concert with Thielemann, Renee Fleming and the Grammy nominated “Elektra” by Strauss under Thielemann.

She recently made her debut with Beethoven’s Ninth at the Chaise Dieu Festival, as 2nd alto voice alongside Waltraud Meier in Mahler’s Eighth at the Dresden Music Festival, with De Falla’s “El Amor Brujo” at the Verbier Festival and the title role in “Carmen” at Ankara Devlet Opera, Theater St. Gallen, Opera de Wallonie, Opera en plein air Festival in Paris, Semperoper Dresden and Opernhaus Zürich. In June 2019 she made her debut with “Die Gezeichneten” at the Amsterdam Concertgebouw, and in September 2019 her first CD recording was released as Berlioz’ “Cleopatra” with the Concertgebouw’s Cammerata.

El Hadidi was born in Cairo. She received her Master of Music from Yale University, as well as M.A. in English and Comparative Literature and B.A. in Philosophy from AUC. A scholarship took her to the International Bach Academy Stuttgart and the Savonlinna Music Academy in Finland. During her studies at Yale, she was taught by Doris Yarick-Cross and took master classes with Marylin Horne, Teresa Berganza, Tom Krause and Francesco Araiza. In 2010 she won the Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions. At the 2011 Stella Maris International Singing Competition, she won two of the three Grand Jury Prizes, which included a test recording for Deutsche Grammophon and a guest engagement at the Vienna State Opera. In 2013 she became the first Egyptian to be nominated for BBC Cardiff Singer of the World.

Martha Jurowski, born in Berlin in 1995, began her stage career in 2007 as a child soprano in Richard Jones’ “Macbeth” production at Glyndebourne.

After studying English philology and history, and alongside her career as a professional Irish dancer, she studied acting at the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art. She then worked as an assistant director at the Komische Oper Berlin and the Staatstheater Cottbus, where she worked with renowned directors such as Barrie Kosky, Boris Yukhananov and Andreas Moses. She continued her vocal training after drama school with Caren van Oijen.

At the Staatstheater Cottbus, she most recently took on a role in the ensemble piece “Catabasis.Dämonen” and will be seen in the opera “Gold” in Cottbus in the 2022/23 season.

Cantus Domus was founded 25 years ago by Lena Schoenfelder. This great, at the time almost audacious idea of forming a choir at the Haus der Jugend in Berlin-Zehlendorf was inspiring and forward-looking. On its way into the present, the choir – from the beginning under the artistic direction of Ralf Sochaczewsky – has enriched and inspired many people. Over the years, musical encounters and collaborations have taken the choir to many cities in Germany and to Belarus, Poland, Nicaragua, England, Norway, France, Georgia and the Netherlands. In the process, Cantus Domus has been accompanied by a great cultural curiosity, diverse forms of musical expression and impressive concert formats.

The Corona pandemic and its accompanying restrictions have dramatically affected the musical and cultural landscape. Like countless choirs in this country and around the world, Cantus Domus has had to cancel planned concerts and concert tours. Due to the restrictions, the choir has unfolded new formats of choral, rehearsal and recording work and thus also allowed its entire artistic creative process to take place in new ways. In a short period of time, unique digital cooperation projects have been carried out with artists such as Shara Nova, Gaby Moreno, the Georgian women’s choir Tutarchela, Nicholas Müller, Grainne Hunt and Mohannad Nasser.

Cantus Domus opens up new approaches to choral music for its audiences with immersive productions and innovative collaborations. As a classical concert choir, it often seeks ways beyond common performance routines, for example by performing in unusual concert venues (J. S. Bach: “B Minor Mass”, Kraftwerk Berlin, 2015) or by involving the audience in its concerts (J. S. Bach: “St Matthew Passion”, Chamber Music Hall of the Berlin Philharmonie, 2018). One of the choir’s trademarks is the format of the so called Concept Concerts, which was developed by Paul Liebrecht in 2008 and has been constantly refined. Here Cantus Domus regularly stages elaborately choreographed and musically demanding performances in unusual spaces (Arthur Honegger: “Le Roi David” in the Vollgutlager of the Alte Kindl Brewery in cooperation with choreographer Christoph Winkler, 2017; “Synthesis” for choir, synthesiser and DJ in the Kindl Centre for Contemporary Art and Culture, 2015 or “Singingpool” in the Stadtbad Steglitz, 2008).

In the last four years before the Corona pandemic, since the premiere of a choral opera staged and excellently reviewed by Cantus Domus (Frank Schwemmer: “Macbeth”, 2016, directed by C. Rindfleisch, libretto: U. Küchler/J. Fraune), Cantus Domus performed  in five countries and cooperated with around 40 orchestras, partner choirs and bands in around 50 performances and concerts. Inspiring international encounters have recently taken place with Wood River from New York, Vox Humana (Oslo), Fahmi Alqhai and the Accademia del Piacere (from Spain, Syria and elsewhere) as well as with the Georgian choirs Shavnabada and Tutarchela. In 2018, Cantus Domus and Bang on a Can All-Stars (New York) gave the German premiere of Julia Wolfe’s Pulitzer Prize for Music-winning oratorio Anthracite Fields in Berlin.

Cantus Domus has worked with the Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester Berlin (RSB) and Vladimir Jurowski (2019), the Kammerakademie Potsdam and Antonello Manacorda (2018), the Estonian National Symphony Orchestra and Neeme Järvi (2018), the Konzerthausorchester Berlin (2013), the Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin and Jonathan Nott (2012), and the Rundfunkchor Berlin and Simon Halsey (2007), among others.

In addition to its numerous concerts with large ensembles, Cantus Domus also performs with various chamber ensembles in smaller projects. In the process, the choir increasingly moves into the border areas between classical and indie/pop, for example with performances at festivals such as People, Kaltern Pop and Haldern Pop, as well as collaborations with Bon Iver, Charlotte Greve, Damien Rice, Helga Davis, Kjartan Sveinsson, Kurt Wagner, Lisa Hannigan, Loney Dear, Mads Brauer, Shara Nova, Stargaze, The Slow Show and Tocotronic, among others.

“Die Fixen Nixen – Der Chor” was initiated in 2001 by Uschi Keil, the managing director of the agency for screenwriting, directing, acting and camera “Above the Line, Berlin”, as a choir for women from media professions. Today, women from other professions also lend their voices to the choir. Among other things, “Die Fixen Nixen” have made it their mission to further develop the song repertoire for women’s choirs.

The repertoire of “Die Fixen Nixen – Der Chor” is very diverse. Contrasts are part of the programme: from Renaissance and Baroque pieces to pop. From German and Georgian folk and lullabies to barbershop songs and modern composers such as the Belarusian Oxana Omelchuk and the Finn Einojuhani Rautavaara.

The artistic director of “Die Fixen Nixen – Der Chor” is Ralf Sochaczewsky. He works internationally as a choral and opera conductor and regularly collaborates with the London Philharmonic Orchestra, the Konzerthausorchester Berlin and the Romanian National Radio Orchestra Bucharest.

About “Die Fixen Nixen” he says: “The Nixen, that is energy, that is stage presence and charisma. Each mermaid (Nixe) is an inspiring person with her own exciting voice. It is a special task for me to bundle this individual power and form a wonderful choral sound out of it.”

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.