»We revelled, danced and cheered!«

The SHMF comes to an end. 203 concerts and 95 per cent capacity - the festival is delighted with its positive results! A total of 180,000 visitors celebrated the diversity of music at 120 venues and 71 locations. Artistic Director Dr Christian Kuhnt is also delighted: »We indulged in saxophone sounds, danced to pop classics and cheered Vivaldi - together with our audience, we celebrated musical diversity for eight weeks and broadened our horizons. What could be better?«

Three brilliant highlights

There are three highlights on the concert programme this weekend: On Saturday, 31 August, the festival finale at the Wunderino Arena in Kiel will be a rousing work of art. Here, sounds from Bach to Vivaldi, interpreted by violin star Daniel Hope and his Hope Orchestra, will merge with video animations by artist Anna Chocholi. The visuals radiate into the hall from a large LED screen and add a sensual, poetic layer to the music. Only a few tickets are still available for the festival finale.

Two further final concerts will take place in Lübeck on Saturday, 31 August and Sunday, 1 September: The NDR Radiophilharmonie under the direction of Stanislav Kochanovsky will share the stage of the Musik- und Kongresshalle with a high-calibre ensemble of soloists and the Schleswig-Holstein Festival Choir. The programme includes the dramatic Requiem by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. Both evenings are sold out. The concert on Sunday will be broadcast live by NDR Kultur on ARD Radiofestival from 20:03. It will then be available in the NDR Kultur media centre.

Music metropolis Venice

The SHMF highlighted the cultural heritage of  Venice in more than 90 events. There were symphonic concerts, chamber music, song and opera evenings, sacred music as well as concerts and readings inspired by the Venetian carnival, the life of the seducer and womaniser Giacomo Casanova or the popular songs of the gondoliers. The Orchestra del Teatro La Fenice, the Venice Baroque Orchestra, I Solisti Veneti, Venice Vocal Jam and Venice fan Ulrich Tukur were invited as musical ambassadors for the city.

Artist portrait: Asya Fateyeva

This year's SHMF portrait artist convinced the festival audience with virtuosity and passion that her saxophone is by no means only reserved for jazz, but also lends an exciting colour to classical music. In a total of 17 concerts, Asya Fateyeva interpreted symphonic works, chamber music, early music, contemporary works and hits by ABBA. She invited many musical friends to her performances, including the bassoonist Sergio Azzolini, the baroque harpist Luise Enzian, the violinist Florian Donderer, the pianist Stepan Simonian, the percussionist Emil Kuyumcuyan, the lutenist Thor-Harald Johnsen and the master of the hurdy-gurdy, Matthias Loibner.

Academies and prizes

This year's Schleswig-Holstein Festival Orchestra was made up of 113 young musicians from 29 nations. Holly Choe, Ion Marin, Andris Poga and Duncan Ward took to the conductor's podium, and Christoph Eschenbach, Principal Conductor of the Festival Orchestra, was also a guest. The programme of the 19 concerts included Anton Bruckner's Symphony No. 3, Camille Saint-Saëns' »Carnival of the Animals« and »Eine Alpensinfonie« by Richard Strauss together with the extreme mountaineer Reinhold Messner. Soloists such as Alisa Weilerstein, Lang Lang and Asya Fateyeva have also appeared on stage with the orchestra. A guest performance will take the young musicians to the Rheingau Music Festival during the summer.

The Schleswig-Holstein Festival Choir will perform Gioachino Rossini's »Petite messe solennelle« under the direction of choir director Nicolas Fink. The festival choir can also be heard this weekend in the festive closing concerts together with the NDR Radiophilharmonie in Lübeck. The programme includes Mozart's legendary Requiem.

The masterclasses with top-class artists attracted young talents from all over the world to the Lübeck University of Music. With The King's Singers and the violinist and conductor Günter Pichler, first-class teachers returned to the SHMF Masterclasses. In addition, portrait artist Asya Fateyeva gave almost 40 passionate saxophonists the opportunity to learn from her musical expertise and become part of a powerful-sounding saxophone orchestra.

In the »Meisterschüler - Meister« concert series, US pianist and composer Uri Caine rehearsed with accordionist Marko Trivunovic and the string ensemble Elaia Quartett and created a programme based on Richard Wagner's great operas.

The Swedish composer Lisa Streich was honoured with the Hindemith Prize 2024. The prize honours young contemporary composers for the 35th time and is endowed with 20,000 euros. The prize is sponsored by the Fondation Hindemith (Blonay/Switzerland), the Rudolf and Erika Koch Foundation, the Walther and Käthe Busche Foundation, the Gerhard Trede Foundation, the Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg and the State of Schleswig-Holstein.

This year's Leonard Bernstein Award, endowed with 10,000 euros, went to cellist Anastasia Kobekina. The prize, sponsored by the Sparkassen-Finanzgruppe, has been awarded at the SHMF since 2002 and has established itself as a career springboard for young talents in the classical music scene. The concert was broadcast live on ARTE Concert and will be available in the media centre until mid-October.

»Werftsommer« and »Musikfeste auf dem Lande«

As part of the »Werftsommer«, the industrial halls of Lübeck's Kulturwerft Gollan became a stage for rousing techno-jazz, Italo and Afropop. The Crucchi Gang, Fatoumata Diawara, Newen Afrobeat and the Jazzrausch Bigband invited the audience to dance on four evenings, followed by a DJ.

The »Musikfeste auf dem Lande« invited visitors to some of the most beautiful estates in Schleswig-Holstein over five weekends: Emkendorf, Stocksee, Wotersen, Hasselburg and Pronstorf. Established artists and young talents provided the varied concert programme.

Offers for families

Together with conductor Holly Hyun Choe and the festival orchestra, KiKA presenter Juri Tetzlaff explored the question: What makes a symphony? Together with the Süddeutsche Bläsersolisten PROFIVE, Juri Tetzlaff also took his young audience into the fairytale world of »1001 Nights«. With the Ardemus Quartet, visitors travelled from the South Pole to Amsterdam. And the Body Rhythm Factory showed that making music without an instrument is possible using only your own body. The two children's music festivals at Gut Wotersen also focussed specifically on children.

 

Next year's festival programme will be published on 27 February 2025.