• Sun 09.07.
  • 7.00 p.m.
  • Bad Kissingen
    ·Regentenbau

A Midsummer Night`s Dream

Kissinger Sommer

Programme

    • Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy (1809–1847)
    • A Midsummer Night`s Dream op. 61

Conductor

Paavo Järvi

Estonian conductor and Grammy Award winner Paavo Järvi has been Artistic Director of the Deutsche Kammer­philharmonie Bremen since 2004. One of the many highlights of this collaboration has been the acclaimed, globally celebrated performances of the Beethoven cycle, for which Järvi received numerous awards including the ›Echo Klassik Conductor of the Year‹ award and the prestigious annual ›German Record Critics‹’ award. Their Beethoven project was followed by an intensive exploration of the symphonic works of Schumann and Brahms; both cycles also received numerous awards. Since autumn 2021, the focus has been on Joseph Haydn’s twelve London symphonies, and since 2024, an intensive exploration of Franz Schubert’s symphonies.

Paavo Järvi has been Music Director of the Tonhalle Orchestra Zurich since the start of the 2019/2020 season. He is also the founder and Artistic Director of the Estonian Festival Orchestra and the Pärnu Music Festival, which he established in 2011. He regularly appears as a guest conductor with major orchestras such as the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra Amsterdam, the London Philharmonia Orchestra, the Berliner Philharmoniker, the Staatskapelle Dresden, the New York and Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestras and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. In 2015, he was named ›Artist of the Year‹ by both the British magazine Gramophone and the French magazine Diapason. This was followed in 2019 by the Opus Klassik award for ›Conductor of the Year‹. Other awards include a Grammy Award for his recording of Sibelius’ Cantatas with the Estonian National Symphony Orchestra and the title ›Commandeur de L’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres‹, awarded by the French Ministry of Culture. In 2015, Paavo Järvi also received the Sibelius Medal in recognition of his work in bringing this Finnish composer’s music to a wider audience, and in 2012 he received the Hindemith Prize for Art and Humanity. As a committed supporter of Estonian culture, Paavo Järvi was awarded the Order of the White Star by the President of Estonia in 2013.

Soprano

Christina Landshamer

Christina Landshamer is a versatile artist who, as recitalist as well as with her varied concert and opera repertoire, is in international demand. Her collaborations with renowned conductors such as Herbert Blomstedt, Manfred Honeck, Alan Gilbert, Marek Janowski and many others regularly result in concerts with major international orchestras – from the Berlin Philharmonic to the Amsterdam Concertgebouw Orchestra to the Orchestre de Paris. In The States, this soprano has also appeared with the New York Philharmonic Orchestra, as well as with the Pittsburgh Symphony and the Montreal Symphony Orchestras.

Christina Landshamer has given opera performances at the Komische Oper Berlin, at the Theater an der Wien with Nikolaus Harnoncourt and also with Sir Simon Rattle at the Salzburg Festspiele. At the Nationaloper Amsterdam, she has sung ›Pamina‹ in Simon McBurney’s ›Zauberflöte‹ and ›Woglinde‹ in Wagner’s ›Rheingold‹ at the Bayerischen Staatsoper with Kirill Petrenko conducting. She has also performed in a spectacular La-Fura-dels-Baus production of Haydn’s ›Schöpfung‹ in Paris as well as at the Mostly Mozart Festival in New York. With her warm, lyric soprano voice, Christina Landshamer is as welcome as a Lieder singer at the Schwarzenberg Schubertiade as she is in London, New York or Tokyo.

She has over 50 CD and DVD recordings to her name and was called to take up a professorship for Vocal Studies at the Trossingen College of Music in 2021.

Soprano

Katharina Konradi

German soprano Katharina Konradi is winner of ›Deutscher Musikwettbewerb 2016‹ in Bonn. She received also the prize of ›Walter and Charlotte Hamel association‹ for outstanding performance of singing.
Since the season 2015/16 the artist joined the ensemble of Hessisches Staatstheater Wiesbaden, where she plays Juliette (›Der Graf von Luxemburg‹), Gretel /Taumännchen/Sandmännchen (›Hänsel und Gretel‹), 5th Maid (›Elektra‹) and more.

Katharina Konradi first publicly performed in summer 2013, at the Chamber Opera Munich. Later she made her debut at the theater in Hof as Anne Frank in ›The diary of Anne Frank‹ by Grigori Frid.

Katharina Konradi is a prize winner of the national competition ›Jugend Musiziert‹. Together with her piano partner Mayuko Obuchi she won the first prize in the category ›Lied Duo‹ of the competition ›Kulturkreis Gasteig‹, Munich. As prize winners of the ›Sommerakademie Mozarteum 2015‹ the two young artists gave a concert within the context of the ›Salzburger Festspiele‹. Katharina Konradi is a scholar of the Paul-Hindemith-Society Berlin, the Yehudi Menuhin Foundation ›Live Music Now‹ Munich and the prestigious funding body of the German People (Studienstiftung des deutschen Volkes).

​Born in Bischkek, Kirgizia, Katharina Konradi started her singing career in 2009 with Julie Kaufmann at the Universität der Künste Berlin, where she studied Lied and Lied interpretation with Axel Bauni and Eric Schneider. She is currently doing a master‘s degree in Lied interpretation at the Hochschule für Musik und Theater Munich with Christiane Iven, Donald Sulzen and Fritz Schwinghammer. She completed her studies with the masterclasses with Prof. Klesie Kelly-Moog in Cologne and Prof. Helmut Deutsch in Salzburg.

Speaker

Katja Riemann

Choir

Tütarlastekoor Ellerhein

Ellerhein Choir Studio is a collective that is part of Estonia’s oldest and biggest fine arts and hobbies school – Tallinn Centre for Extracurricular Activities Kullo (founded in 1941). The studio was created by Heino Kaljuste in 1951. Currently the studio consists of a pre-school group Mummud, a young children’s choir, a children’s choir and a girls’ choir. Since 1970, Tiia-Ester Loitme started to work with the choir as second conductor and she was head conductor of the choir from 1989 to 2012. The choir was renamed Ellerhein in 1969, on the 100th anniversary of the Estonian Song Festivals. Apart from giving concerts, all singers receive training in vocal, solfeggio, and harmony classes. The choir uses the relative Kodaly system when learning new repertoire.

In June 2012, Ellerhein celebrated its 60th birthday with a grandiose concert in Estonia Concert Hall.

Since 2012, the position of head conductor is held by Ingrid Kõrvits. The choir’s repertoire consists of both classical and contemporary choral music by outstanding composers from all over the world.

Ellerhein has been successful in many international choral competitions: In 2012, the choir received the Second Prize Gold Level in the International Choral Competition ›Ave Verum‹ in Baden, Austria. In 2013 Ingrid Kõrvits received the prize for Best Conductor in the International Choral Competition ›Tallinn 2013‹ while the choir obtained second place in the youth choirs’ category. At the International Tallinn 2017 Choir Festival the choir won 1st prizes in the category of female choirs and folk music.

In the season of 2016/2017 the choir celebrated their 65th year of performing.

Deutscher Kammerchor

The German Camber Choir was founded 15 years ago by professional singers with the objective to pool their wealth of experience as impassioned ensemble choristers and practiced soloists in a vocal ensemble. The responses of the public and the media, as well as invitations from renowned conductors (e.g. Marcus Creed, Heinz Holliger) and orchestras (Ensemble Modern, Basel Chamber Orchestra) to perform on Europe’s most important recital stages are impressive testimony to this commitment. The openness of the German Chamber Choir to all music at the cutting edge is demonstrated by the diversity of its artistic collaborations, most recently with pianist Sir András Schiff at the Schleswig-Holstein Music Festival.

Concerts have taken the ensemble to such prestigious venues as the Festspielhaus Baden-Baden, the Leipzig Gewandhaus, the Concertgebouw Amsterdam and the Great Hall of the Musikverein in Vienna. At the invitation of Germany’s Federal President, the German Chamber Choir performed one of the traditional Advent concerts at the official residence, Schloss Bellevue, and a choral concert in the Hagia Eirene in Istanbul on the occasion of a state visit.

CD recordings and radio broadcasts attest to the choir’s high performance capacities. Critics from renowned German dailies have expressed their appreciation of the »ensemble’s exceptional homogeneity and versatility, as well as the lightness, fluidity, differentiation, transparency and virtuosity of its performances«.

Conductor

Paavo Järvi

Estonian conductor and Grammy Award winner Paavo Järvi has been Artistic Director of the Deutsche Kammer­philharmonie Bremen since 2004. One of the many highlights of this collaboration has been the acclaimed, globally celebrated performances of the Beethoven cycle, for which Järvi received numerous awards including the ›Echo Klassik Conductor of the Year‹ award and the prestigious annual ›German Record Critics‹’ award. Their Beethoven project was followed by an intensive exploration of the symphonic works of Schumann and Brahms; both cycles also received numerous awards. Since autumn 2021, the focus has been on Joseph Haydn’s twelve London symphonies, and since 2024, an intensive exploration of Franz Schubert’s symphonies.

Paavo Järvi has been Music Director of the Tonhalle Orchestra Zurich since the start of the 2019/2020 season. He is also the founder and Artistic Director of the Estonian Festival Orchestra and the Pärnu Music Festival, which he established in 2011. He regularly appears as a guest conductor with major orchestras such as the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra Amsterdam, the London Philharmonia Orchestra, the Berliner Philharmoniker, the Staatskapelle Dresden, the New York and Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestras and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. In 2015, he was named ›Artist of the Year‹ by both the British magazine Gramophone and the French magazine Diapason. This was followed in 2019 by the Opus Klassik award for ›Conductor of the Year‹. Other awards include a Grammy Award for his recording of Sibelius’ Cantatas with the Estonian National Symphony Orchestra and the title ›Commandeur de L’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres‹, awarded by the French Ministry of Culture. In 2015, Paavo Järvi also received the Sibelius Medal in recognition of his work in bringing this Finnish composer’s music to a wider audience, and in 2012 he received the Hindemith Prize for Art and Humanity. As a committed supporter of Estonian culture, Paavo Järvi was awarded the Order of the White Star by the President of Estonia in 2013.

Soprano

Katharina Konradi

German soprano Katharina Konradi is winner of ›Deutscher Musikwettbewerb 2016‹ in Bonn. She received also the prize of ›Walter and Charlotte Hamel association‹ for outstanding performance of singing.
Since the season 2015/16 the artist joined the ensemble of Hessisches Staatstheater Wiesbaden, where she plays Juliette (›Der Graf von Luxemburg‹), Gretel /Taumännchen/Sandmännchen (›Hänsel und Gretel‹), 5th Maid (›Elektra‹) and more.

Katharina Konradi first publicly performed in summer 2013, at the Chamber Opera Munich. Later she made her debut at the theater in Hof as Anne Frank in ›The diary of Anne Frank‹ by Grigori Frid.

Katharina Konradi is a prize winner of the national competition ›Jugend Musiziert‹. Together with her piano partner Mayuko Obuchi she won the first prize in the category ›Lied Duo‹ of the competition ›Kulturkreis Gasteig‹, Munich. As prize winners of the ›Sommerakademie Mozarteum 2015‹ the two young artists gave a concert within the context of the ›Salzburger Festspiele‹. Katharina Konradi is a scholar of the Paul-Hindemith-Society Berlin, the Yehudi Menuhin Foundation ›Live Music Now‹ Munich and the prestigious funding body of the German People (Studienstiftung des deutschen Volkes).

​Born in Bischkek, Kirgizia, Katharina Konradi started her singing career in 2009 with Julie Kaufmann at the Universität der Künste Berlin, where she studied Lied and Lied interpretation with Axel Bauni and Eric Schneider. She is currently doing a master‘s degree in Lied interpretation at the Hochschule für Musik und Theater Munich with Christiane Iven, Donald Sulzen and Fritz Schwinghammer. She completed her studies with the masterclasses with Prof. Klesie Kelly-Moog in Cologne and Prof. Helmut Deutsch in Salzburg.

Choir

Tütarlastekoor Ellerhein

Ellerhein Choir Studio is a collective that is part of Estonia’s oldest and biggest fine arts and hobbies school – Tallinn Centre for Extracurricular Activities Kullo (founded in 1941). The studio was created by Heino Kaljuste in 1951. Currently the studio consists of a pre-school group Mummud, a young children’s choir, a children’s choir and a girls’ choir. Since 1970, Tiia-Ester Loitme started to work with the choir as second conductor and she was head conductor of the choir from 1989 to 2012. The choir was renamed Ellerhein in 1969, on the 100th anniversary of the Estonian Song Festivals. Apart from giving concerts, all singers receive training in vocal, solfeggio, and harmony classes. The choir uses the relative Kodaly system when learning new repertoire.

In June 2012, Ellerhein celebrated its 60th birthday with a grandiose concert in Estonia Concert Hall.

Since 2012, the position of head conductor is held by Ingrid Kõrvits. The choir’s repertoire consists of both classical and contemporary choral music by outstanding composers from all over the world.

Ellerhein has been successful in many international choral competitions: In 2012, the choir received the Second Prize Gold Level in the International Choral Competition ›Ave Verum‹ in Baden, Austria. In 2013 Ingrid Kõrvits received the prize for Best Conductor in the International Choral Competition ›Tallinn 2013‹ while the choir obtained second place in the youth choirs’ category. At the International Tallinn 2017 Choir Festival the choir won 1st prizes in the category of female choirs and folk music.

In the season of 2016/2017 the choir celebrated their 65th year of performing.