Name: Dance on the Abyss
Start: 2024-01-26T19:00:00
Location: Alte Oper

Sayaka Shoji

Constantinos Carydis

hr-Sinfonieorchester

A program that goes against all conventions with the charismatic conductor Constantinos Carydis. Dance is the focus, and Carydis himself plays the piano - supported by the hr concertmasters Florin Iliescu and Maximilian Junghanns. And there is a violin concerto to experience that goes beyond any norm. Robert Schumann's D minor concerto is a special case. While the composer celebrated the pure joy of life with his "Rhenish Symphony", three years later he lets us look into the depths, perhaps into the abysses, with the violin concerto. It is a completely unconventional, even visionary late work, an exotic island in the midst of the all too ingratiating, beautiful sound concerts of that time. Only a few violinists dare to dance on the volcano - the Japanese Sayaka Shoji is one of them. Her career began at the age of 16 when she won the Paganini Competition in Genoa in 1999. She is the youngest prizewinner to date. She grew up in Italy and Japan, studied in Cologne and now lives in Paris. And she never wanted to be a dancer, but an opera singer – "but I had a very quiet voice. In a way, learning the violin was an alternative, which is why singing became a very important element in my playing."