Name: Guest performance Wanfried
Start: 2026-06-21T17:00:00
Location: Stadtkirche, Wanfried

Göttinger Symphonieorchester

It was England's first major violin concerto. It quickly became clear that it was by no means banal or purely artistic – after all, in his Opus 61, performed here by the British composer Anthony Marwood, Edward Elgar had laid bare nothing less than his innermost being. Even the Finn Jean Sibelius, whose value has long since been fully recognized after initial public skepticism, famously didn't create a single banal bar. His last symphony, premiered in the 1920s, is, like its predecessors, dark and profoundly serious, emotionally gripping, and, with just one movement, formally revolutionary. The second half of the concert, conducted by Anna Rakitina, opens with a cheerful work by the early Haydn: his Symphony
"Morning" features a beautiful sunrise.

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Stadthalle Göttingen

One of perhaps two handfuls of the most famous works in the entire history of music is exactly 300 years old – and still enjoys immense popularity: Antonio Vivaldi's "The Four Seasons" is actually a collection of four violin concertos that capture the seasons in impressively audible tones. Spring thunders and lightning, summer suffers from the heat, farmers celebrate in autumn, and winter bites with cold. We hear the forces of nature, animal sounds, and human life in the cycle of a year. Host Thomas Scholz takes the young listeners on a journey through Vivaldi's masterpiece, which not only demonstrates the capabilities of program music, but also the versatility of a solo violin's sound.

The Four Seasons

Free Waldorf School Göttingen

Attention Dvořák fans: After the Fifth Symphony in the fifth symphony concert, here follows his Seventh – perhaps the most serious, but possibly also the most deeply moving, by the Bohemian musician, who over time conquered Europe and the USA. But those who focus only on this classic can easily overlook the others in this concert. Annabel Hauk, born in Frankfurt am Main in 1999, plays cello in Robert Schumann's A minor Concerto, which offers the solo instrument a pleasing amount of scope for elegiac expression and, as one of the first works from his Düsseldorf period, still exudes a great deal of joie de vivre. It is only fitting that chief conductor Nicholas Milton opens the morning with Weber's Freischütz Overture, as it is equally rich in color.

Mystical

PS Speicher

Stadthalle Osterode am Harz

As valuable as this treasure is, sometimes the focus on the individual geniuses of Central European music obscures the view of the incredible diversity surrounding it. How many melodies from village and peasant wedding musicians are still to be discovered! In this chamber concert, Angelina Nalbantova from Bulgaria and Nico Gutu from Moldova show us what Eastern Europe, including Romania, as well as Argentina, France, and Spain, have to offer in this broad field. The proximity to improvised jazz is almost always palpable – the focus is on Chick Corea's masterpiece "Spain." Violin and accordion are the flexible instruments, a perfect fit here, as they stand in stark contrast to the large symphony orchestra. Have a good trip out into the wide world!

Worldwide treasures

GDA Göttingen

Reformed Church of Göttingen

Igor Stravinsky's musical theater piece, written for a traveling theater, premiered in Lausanne in September 1918—six weeks before the end of the First World War. The fairy tale of the soldier who sells himself to the devil tells of the uprooting of an entire wartime generation. This groundbreaking work, in musical theater terms, will be combined in our performance with one of the most impressive cantatas of the 17th century: "How desolate lies the city." Written by the Hamburg organist Matthias Weckmann in 1663 under the impression of a devastating plague epidemic, the piece paints a vivid picture of human despair in the face of senseless destruction. The combination of the two pieces creates a hauntingly timeless evening that lies somewhere between musical theater and spatial installation.

Story of the Soldier

German Theatre, Göttingen

For centuries, women were barred from performing in public, let alone formulating their own artistic positions. Even classical music is still not exempt from this. Slam Symphony III brings together music by female composers and modern linguistic art. It is a bold attempt to explore language and speechlessness simultaneously. What can language describe, what can poetry explain that cannot otherwise be explained, and what does it say when it falls silent at certain points while the music continues? This is where the power of radical softness becomes apparent: through empathy and vulnerability, voices become audible that were previously barely heard. The poets present their texts among and on works by female composers such as Anna Clyne, Emilie Mayer, and Britta Byström.

Slam Symphony – Sprach:Lo!

A concert like a tender confession. It begins with a lament and ends with a departure. In between, sound spaces unfold that offer protection while daring to be open. Samuel Barber's "Adagio for Strings" resonates with painful beauty. Lisa Streich composed "Mantel" as a piece about coverings: about what they conceal and what shines through them. A fragile texture emerges that protects and conceals. But what lies beneath? In Caroline Shaw's "Entr'acte," we hear more than a harmless interlude: full of lightness and wit, it surprises with unexpected twists. And then: spring. Schumann's First Symphony allows hope to blossom with every note. Those who allow themselves to be carried by Schumann's momentum sense that even departure requires vulnerability. And how radically vibrant a new beginning can sound!

Spring Coat

Aula am Wilhelmsplatz

A wonderfully vibrant evening to close the season! Is there a more shimmering, more thrilling piece of exotic music than the Bacchanale from Camille Saint-Saëns' opera "Samson et Dalila"? Hardly. This is followed by
Anna Clyne's "Quarter Days," which premiered only in 2023 and which the new Composer in Focus series describes as a reflection on the passage of time: "both within a minute, a day, the seasons, and even within an entire lifetime." And finally, the then-revolutionary "Symphonie fantastique" by the Frenchman Hector Berlioz, now indestructible as a clever popular hit, is a captivating evening with Nicholas Milton and the Elaia Quartet from Berlin, who know how to shape the profoundly human passage of time into soaring tones!