The Wind Soloists

Popular in Prague, cult in Japan

Since the ensemble was founded in 1990, the Wind Soloists have made regular appearances on radio and been active in the recording studio; the Wind Soloists’ numerous CD recordings include works by Gottfried von Einem, Kurt Weill, Erwin Schulhoff, Modest Mussorgsky, Antonín Dvořák, Franz Schubert and Carl Maria von Weber. In addition to their CD recordings, the ECHO award-winning musicians regularly give live performances of their exquisite and impressive repertoire in international concert halls and at festivals such as the Mozart Festival in Prague, the International Lucerne Festival, the Rheingau Music Festival and the Schleswig-Holstein Musik Festival.

The Wind Soloists also receive regular invitations to Japan. Since 2002, the ensemble has been invited to Japan almost every year to perform specially arranged Mozart operas with the locally famous Kyogen theatre of the Shigeyama family. This highly successful cross-over project featuring traditional Japanese theatrical art and European classical music has become extremely popular in Japan and contributes to the cult status enjoyed there by The Deutsche Kammer­philharmonie Bremen.

Customized versatility

Opera for an octet

Since the late 18th century, it has been a popular practice to have small wind ensembles play special arrangements of operas that were known as Harmoniemusik (harmony music). The repertoire of the Wind Soloists of The Deutsche Kammer­philharmonie Bremen also includes many pieces of classical Harmoniemusik – ranging from Baroque music and wind serenades to contemporary works. The ensemble’s unique artistic profile, however, derives from its performances of ›major‹ orchestral works in arrangements for wind instruments, many of which have been transcribed especially for this octet.

The Wind Soloists captivate audiences and critics alike with the quality of their music, and above all with performances of superb wind ensemble arrangements by Andreas N. Tarkmann. In 1998, for example, the Deutsche Phono-Akademie awarded the octet an ECHO Klassik award for their recording of Tarkmann’s arrangement of Felix Mendelssohn’s ›A Midsummer Night’s Dream‹.