Name: American and European classics
Start: 2025-12-11T19:30:00
Location: CityPalais

Diana Tishchenko

Axel Kober

Duisburger Philharmoniker

With the end of the 2024/2025 season, Axel Kober has stepped down as General Music Director of the Duisburg Philharmonic. It was a long and fruitful collaboration, for which the conductor is now being honored with the 2025 Duisburg City Music Prize, sponsored by the Köhler-Osbahr Foundation. For him, the award is a wonderful acknowledgment – ​​"to receive feedback, so to speak, after the years spent together that what we have done has left its mark." And, of course, he will try "to continue to remain connected to Duisburg's musical life." A promise he immediately fulfills in the 4th Philharmonic Concert. After programming Arnold Schoenberg's powerful "Gurre-Lieder" in his farewell concert as General Music Director, he returns to his former orchestra conducting works by two American composers and combining them with Beethoven's Symphony No. 7: Charles Ives' "The Unanswered Question" sounds mystical and transcendental, creating an iconic work of American modernism. Meanwhile, in Samuel Barber's popular Violin Concerto, violin virtuosity and voluptuous melodies enter into a delightful liaison. Dance-like rhythms then characterize Beethoven's Seventh, which, with the Allegretto, also contains one of the greatest hits of the Viennese classic.