Name: Slam Symphony
Start: 2025-11-12T20:00:00
Location: Bamberger Symphoniker

Kevin Fitzgerald

Bamberger Symphoniker

To round off the year, we're treating our audience to a fun and colorful puzzle: They can create their own New Year's Eve concert – and we'll play whatever they request. Until then, however, they'll be spoiled for choice, as there's a wide selection of works in different categories to vote on: 5 sparkling overtures, 10 enchanting orchestral and violin pieces each – and even 5 lively encores. The "conductor" has already been chosen: The young and versatile conductor Aurel Dawidiuk, who is also a successful pianist and organist, was recently appointed Associate Conductor of the renowned Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra.

New Year's Eve À La Carte

The game is on again: our popular Slam Symphony enters the next round. And so it’s time to get creative for another exciting competition between poets. This time, the theme takes us to the heart of Andalusia, where the story of Carmen is set – a temperamental and self-confident woman who wraps a handsome officer as well as a dashing bullfighter around her finger with her seductive arts, but deep down loves her freedom much more. A web of intrigue, passion and jealousy unfolds. All this amid the flair of bullfighting, cigarette factories and smuggling – and with music that is brimming with Spanish folklore. Rodion Shchedrin’s arrangement, created in 1967, lends the numbers from Bizet’s successful opera a fascinating modern sound – with lots of percussion instruments and a stirring drive. The familiar melodic earworms (such as the “Habanera”) remain, but in the kaleidoscopic splendour of this wonderful version they seem both familiar and tantalisingly unfamiliar. We look forward to hearing how the poetry slammers will illuminate the story of Carmen with their texts – and at the end, the level of applause will reveal which puns the audience liked best.