On November 20, our Rising Stars of the Dr. Langner Jazz Masters took to the small hall of the Elbphilharmonie together with Wolf Kerschek, the junge norddeutsche philharmonie and Nils Landgren and made everything that wasn't nailed down vibrate.
With a varied program ranging from small chamber music formations to the full orchestral sound of the crossover-enthusiastic jnp, the entertaining evening offered an insight into the broad spectrum of jazz.
And the students clearly had a lot of fun. Although the detailed schedule, the strict time constraints and the many changes were a real challenge for musicians who usually perform spontaneously and improvised in less formal contexts, "the stage and the hall and the whole environment were a great experience: we were immediately captivated by the magic of the Elbphilharmonie. The program design with the crossover and the acoustics worked very well here. It was a great opportunity for our students to perform here and be part of a very professionally staged show." Says co-organizer Lasse Grunewald.
Our special thanks go to Dr. Ernst Langner, who made this concert possible with his generous support.
Yu Sugimoto has been studying conducting at the HfMT since 2015. In October and November, he took over the musical direction of two different opera projects at the HfMT (Handel's Oreste and Tchaikovsky's Eugene Onegin). In the concert with the Ensemble 13/14 on December 8 at the Forum, he will conduct Copland's Clarinet Concerto (solo: Roman Gerber).
His recommendation for December:
Once when I was assisting on an opera project in Japan, I got a call from the musical director asking about today's rehearsal. I told him that the singers weren't motivated and that the intonation wasn't good either and... Then he got angry with me and told me that no "instrument" was more difficult than singing and that you should never criticize the motivation of the singers. It was my fault if I couldn't improve the situation. I was very shocked at the time, but today I have to agree with him. The singers' instrument is their body and they have to take care of it every day. I am therefore always happy when I can work with the wonderful and motivated singers at the HfMT and I respect them very much. One concert that I can highly recommend is the "Opera Gala" on December 13th
Great enthusiasm and total rejection can go hand in hand when it comes to the perception of art. Mien Bogaert's production of "Eugene Onegin" in the Forum of the HfMT, with which the young Belgian is completing his directing studies, is currently provoking controversial reactions from audiences and the press:
NDR 90,3: "The evening searches for the Russia in which someone like Putin could grow up. (...) He has really succeeded in creating an imaginative, political Tchaikovsky evening. We will certainly be hearing more from Mien Bogaert." The WELT has a completely different opinion: "In his graduation work from the Theaterakademie Hamburg, the young director and stage designer at the Young Forum Music and Drama has gone so far beyond the goal of logical coherence that one wonders whether the madness could be an expression of a deeper interpretation. (...) It is the day of the big wash, which drags on throughout the entire production with a repetitive cast of characters, which makes use of clichés with frightening simplicity." The online opera magazine O-Ton, on the other hand, is enthusiastic: "These worlds send shivers down the spine. From an otherwise often boringly staged scene in the opera emerges the kaleidoscope of a picture of the end times, as in a capitalist Walpurgis Night. (...) It is to be hoped that many young people of student age will see the production and be fascinated and inspired by the topicality of the opera in this particular realization. (...) The politically and socially relevant creativity of future young directors is certainly in good shape in Hamburg."
