Artists & projects

Music with a magical effect: for his new album "Incantation", French violinist Virgil Boutellis-Taft has set out to find compositions in which his instrument can be heard as a sounding sorceress and conjurer.

Improvisation, speech flow and (re)composition are the key words for the new album by oboist, composer and creative director Cathy Milliken, who - as a Berlin-resident by choice - directed the Berliner Philharmoniker's education programme for several years. The texts performed or sung by the participating artists come from the Cubist-oriented collection "Tender Buttons" by the American writer and art collector Gertrude Stein (1874-1946).

Her ability to interpret works of music in both a spirited and sensitive fashion has drawn the attention of the international music scene to the German-Greek pianist Danae Dörken. On her new album “East and West” (Ars Produktion, release date: July 5, 2019), she fuses western piano compositions by Schubert, Grieg, Poulenc and de Falla with pieces by eastern composers such as Chopin, Bartók and the Greek composer Manolis Kalomiris.

Noé Inui's new CD includes not only all "Six Sonatas for Solo Violin" op. 27, but also the world-premiere recording of the "Étude-Poème" in G minor – all of it played using a bow that once belonged to Ysaÿe himself.

The cellist Benedict Kloeckner releases his first duo album with the pianist Danae Dörken. “Between Nostalgia and Revolution” (Genuin, release date: July 5, 2019) features works by Robert Schumann, Dmitri Shostakovich and Bohuslav Martinů and showcases the duo’s breathtaking ensemble sound that is characterised by their ability to oscillate between deep inwardness and exuberant playfulness.

A native of South Korea, Klara Min has performed extensively throughout North and South America, Europe as well as South Korea, in some of the world’s most important concert venues including Wigmore Hall London, Carnegie Hall, Gasteig Munich and Berlin Philharmonie Hall. In the season 2019-2020, she will release the first recording of the series of Schumann (Arabesque, Carnaval, Kreislerianer) on Haenssler Classics.

On his new album "Between Heaven & Hell", which has been released on the label Onyx, Joseph Moog dedicated himself to the main work of Franz Liszt, his B-minor Sonata, the "Dante-Sonata" and the Deux Légendes. It is a pianistic contemplation of existential questions of life and thus Moog draws a comprehensive portrait of Franz Liszt.

In 2018 the Cappella Aquileia and Marcus Bosch started to work with the violinist Lena Neudauer and the record label cpo a several years concert- and recording project with Beethoven's incidental music, romances and his Violin concerto. The first record was released on Dec 6, 2019.

Compulsion and freedom are the poles between which the life and work of Ludwig van Beethoven can be placed. This is exemplified by his late work, which transcends the boundaries of form, becomes fragile and reaches a level of freedom and radicalism never before seen. Staged Concert for a string quartet, an electric guitar, four performers, a sound designer and two cameras.

The new Saarbrücken „Ring“ with the premiere of the „Rhinegold“ on 28 March 2020 is being forged by the Hungarian directors and stage designers Alexandra Szemerédy and Magdolna Parditka. They have no easy standing in their home country, which makes them exciting contemplators of the Wagnerian world theatre, where greed meets omnipotence.

In October 2019, Simon Trpčeski released his new album on the label Onyx with the name "Tales of Russia". On this album he presents a fascinating programme of Russian classics, two of which are heard in unfamiliar guises as works for solo piano – Mussorgsky’ Night on a Bare Mountain, in the arrangement by Rimsky, and then the latter’s Sheherazade. The programme starts with Prokofiev’s delightful ‘Tales of the Old Gramdmother’.