Our festival orchestra is getting into starting position...
... because from now on talented young musicians from all over the world can apply for a summer in Schleswig-Holstein. From November to February, the best will be selected at live auditions around the world. They will receive a scholarship that includes their trip to Schleswig-Holstein and their stay at Nordkolleg Rendsburg during the festival season from the beginning of July to the end of August, just like the intensive work with renowned international conductors.
In the summer of 2024, Holly Hyun Choe, Ion Marin, Andris Poga, Duncan Ward and Christoph Eschenbach will conduct the festival orchestra. Rehearsals will be held at the ACO Thormannhalle on the grounds of NordArt in Rendsburg-Büdelsdorf.
The Korean-American conductor Holly Hyun Choe will be a guest of the Festival Orchestra for the third time in a row in the summer of 2024. She is first conductor of ensemble reflektor and will be working on Richard Wagner's Prelude and Liebestod from »Tristan und Isolde« as well as Anton Bruckner's Symphony No. 3 in the coming year.
Ion Marin, professor of orchestral conducting at the University Mozarteum Salzburg, will make his debut with the festival orchestra in 2024. He is considered an expert in both the operatic and symphonic fields and has been awarded the prestigious Diapason d'Or prize, among others. On the program with the 2024 Festival Orchestra is Camille Saint-Saëns' »Carnival of the Animals«.
There will be a reunion with Andris Poga, chief conductor of the Stavanger Symphony Orchestra. The Latvian conductor already led the young musicians of the SHFO to the Elbphilharmonie in Hamburg as well as to the Konzerthaus Berlin in 2021. In his second working phase with the festival orchestra, he is working on »An Alpine Symphony« by Richard Strauss.
With the British conductor Duncan Ward, another up-and-coming representative of the younger generation will be a guest with the Festival Orchestra. On the recommendation of Sir Simon Rattle, he became the first conductor to be accepted into the Berliner Philharmoniker's Orchestra Academy in 2012. Since 2021, he has been chief conductor of the Philharmonie Zuidnederland. His SHFO debut will feature Georges Bizet's Carmen Suites Nos. 1 and 2.
Christoph Eschenbach, chief conductor of the Konzerthausorchester Berlin until the 2022/23 season, has held the special position of Principal Conductor of the festival orchestra since 2004 and will thus once again be on the podium of the young orchestra in the coming year. In the final work phase of the 2024 summer season, he and the musicians will devote themselves to Franz Schubert's Symphony No. 7, the »Unfinished«.
Click here to apply for the Schleswig-Holstein Festival Orchestra.