Chamber Music Festival 2021

Dear audience,

I am very pleased to introduce to you as artistic director the Chamber Music Festival of the Rostock University of Music and Theatre under the poetic motto “When the hours stood still”.

One morning in December last year, in the middle of the pandemic, I got up and had the feeling that time just wasn’t moving forward while I had been doing a lot. I was sure that at that moment I was not the only one who felt this way. I was certainly just one of many who perceived how much energy we had inside us, without knowing how to discharge it fruitfully in this time of uncertain future. Music has a name for this psychological state: fermata! The Italians call this sign of all things: “Corona”.

Regardless of how long this state of external life that has come to a standstill may last, it is unbelievable what happens to us internally in such a prolonged moment, especially if we consciously try to live this timeless time. Many students, colleagues have used this time to stay productive and creatively on the ball, pondering and answering many questions affecting their existence: this Chamber Music Festival will therefore provide a podium for the many that have been given life during this human fermata.

In nine concerts we will experience a journey from Bach’s – overcoming sleepless hours – Goldberg Variations through shoals of fear, over the mountains of defiance, through the imagery of Federico Mompou’s “fallen” music, through black night and intimate deepened contemplation to light, even to dance and hope, and to the mature reflection of the Marschallin in “Rosenkavalier”. In addition to musical bestsellers from the hands of Mendelssohn, Schumann and Brahms, we will also hear works by today’s male and female composers that question our times and cast them in a new light.

I am proud that chamber music works and songs by Fazıl Say, Rolf Riehm, Manuela Kerer, Roland Leistner-Mayer and Kaija Saariaho will be performed at the highest level at our university. We will experience musical moments born “when the hours stood still” because our senses and hearts were anything but still.

Finally, I would like to express my sincere gratitude to all the students, colleagues who are involved in this Chamber Music Festival, as well as to all those behind the scenes whose tireless energy makes the Chamber Music Festival possible. I wish you much pleasure!

Yours
Endri Nini
Artistic Director