As every year, the 1st Loh Concert sets the mood for the Christmas season. You can hear ballet music and dance suites by Peter I. Tchaikovsky (»The Nutcracker«, »Mozartiana«) and Ludwig van Beethoven (»Prometheus«). And of course the program ends with the singing of Christmas carols together - this is also a tried and tested tradition of the Loh Concert during Advent. At the same time, it is a forum for selected prizewinners of the Sondershausen Carl Schroeder Competition: Here they have the opportunity to demonstrate their skills and musicality in front of an audience.  

1st Loh concert

Achteckhaus

Engelbert Humperdinck composed an exciting opera with catchy music based on the well-known fairy tale of Hansel and Gretel. This morning we will play the most beautiful and most important catchy tunes from it and tell the story. Of course, the instruments of the woodwind quintet will also be presented in detail in the concert.

1st Pillow Concert

Cyriaci Chapel

Haus der Kunst

For this year's Christmas concert - after the successful musical "The Spirit of Christmas" - the angel will once again float down onto Nordhausen's stage: Stefanie Hertel, together with her daughter Johanna Mross and her husband Lanny Lanner, will sing a selection of their most popular Christmas songs, including traditional and original Christmas songs as well as international songs such as "To the Post Office Cloud 7" and "I'm Dreaming of a White Christmas". The Loh Orchestra will provide the appropriate sound base and will also be represented with rousing orchestral pieces. And of course the audience is invited to sing along to some Christmas songs.

Christmas concert

Theater Nordhausen

Georges Bizet did not live to see the success of his last opera, "Carmen," as he died just a few months after its premiere, which took place in March 1875 at the Paris Opera-comique. At the time, there was a hail of harsh criticism: the title character, for example, was "obscene" in her unconditional love of freedom, an "incarnation of vice" and should be "banned by the police." The composer and his librettists portrayed the dramatic story of the spirited Spanish woman Carmen and her lover Don José in a drastic realism that was unusual for the time. Carmen, who loves her independence and does not allow herself to be taken over, increasingly frees herself from the possessive clutches of Don José. The latter is drawn into a fatal vortex of jealousy and mistrust.

Carmen

Haydn, Mozart and Schubert, the Viennese trio – and right in the middle of it all, Johann Nepomuk Hummel. This is to be understood as symbolic, as the gifted pianist Hummel was in personal contact with all three. He was a student of Mozart, Haydn's successor in Esterházy and the dedicatee of Schubert's last piano sonatas. He is represented here with one of his best-known works, the highly virtuoso trumpet concerto, played by the Loh Orchestra's solo trumpeter Ralf Glitscher. In addition, there is the lively overture to Haydn's magic opera "Armida" and some of the dances that Mozart wrote for festive balls in the Vienna Redoutensaal. The program is rounded off by Schubert's 5th Symphony, a work from his youth that nevertheless already opens the door wide to Romanticism.

2nd Castle Concert

Blue Hall

A violoncello can do pretty much anything, bel canto and rumbling bass, languishing and humming, solo and accompaniment. If four of them come together, the possibilities are almost unlimited. And so the cello players from the ranks of the Loh Orchestra take on any score, be it classical or modern. Their program includes works by Joseph Haydn, David Popper and Jacob Gade ("Tango Jalousie"), as well as other dance music and, by popular request, arrangements by the metal band "Metallica". Details are not yet being revealed. One thing is certain: it will be a listening pleasure again!

1st Chamber Concert

Banquet Hall

Cruciskirche

Kunsthaus Meyenburg

Good mood guaranteed! With Germaine Tailleferre's orchestral overture from 1931, we plunge into the hustle and bustle of the big city, into the pulsating life of Paris. The fact that the composer was a member of the legendary artist group "Les Six" (the only female member, incidentally) can be heard in every bar of this music, which is free of romantic pathos.

2nd Symphony Concert

Romanticism has many facets, and some of the most beautiful can be heard here. The range extends from the stroke of genius of the 14-year-old Franz Schubert to the Spring Fantasy of the late Romantic Delius. As well as Schubert, Schumann, Grieg and Brahms are represented in our program with songs that the Swiss composer Fabian Müller has arranged for clarinet and string orchestra. The fifth of the once immensely popular serenades by Robert Fuchs will be heard at the end. Fuchs, the Viennese teacher of Gustav Mahler, Richard Strauss and many others, pays homage to his colleague Johann Strauss in the last movement of his work - with quotes from "The Bat".

Heringer Castle Concert

"Who can do anything after Beethoven?" This sigh, attributed to the young Franz Schubert, expresses - on behalf of so many other composers up to the end of the 19th century - the difficulty of creating any more symphonies after Beethoven's symphonies, which were considered so perfect. Schubert himself left behind a whole series of symphonic fragments in his search for his own path, including perhaps the most beautiful torso of Romanticism with "the Unfinished". Only two movements, but they traverse an entire emotional cosmos.

1st Symphony Concert

With Tina Turner, the Loh Orchestra is dedicating its popular crossover series to perhaps the greatest rock legend of all time. She began her career alongside her then husband in the 1960s and 70s with the rhythm and blues duo "Ike & Tina Turner". After her divorce, she started an incomparable solo career in the 80s and became a soul, rock and pop icon in equal measure. In 1988, she set a world record with a concert in the Maracanã Stadium in Rio de Janeiro in front of around 180,000 spectators. To this day, the exceptional artist, who died in 2023, inspires people all over the world with her unmistakable voice, her special energy and her big hits such as "What's the Love Got to Do With It" and "Private Dancer". In Nordhausen, Madina Frey lends her voice to the “Queen of Rock’n Roll” and transforms the stage into a sea of ​​emotions together with Nicky Wuchinger , Laura Saleh and Funda Asena Aktop .

Tina Turner

For the Open Monument Day, soprano Yuval Oren and tenor Marian Kalus, two soloists from the Nordhausen Theater, and the opera choir will give a celebratory concert that leaves nothing to be desired. Highlights from opera, operetta and musicals can be heard, including from Georges Bizet's opera "Carmen" and Bedrich Smetana's "The Bartered Bride", from the operetta "The Bat" by Johann Strauss as well as timeless "evergreens" in the musical "A Cage Full of Fools" and Leonard Bernstein's "Westside Story" and much more. The artists will be accompanied on the piano by choir director Markus Fischer and the director of studies and conductor Svetlomir Zlatkov.

Festive Concert for the Open Monument Day

After the terrorist attack by Hamas on October 7, 2023, Igor Levit recognizes "an explosion of anti-Semitism" and is stunned by the widespread silence, including in the cultural scene. He has already broken this silence with several benefit concerts and now wants to set another example together with TN LOS!.

»Against silence. Against anti-Semitism.

This season, the Loh Orchestra will once again be giving open-air concerts in a relaxed atmosphere. The orchestra's performances have been a permanent fixture at the two major town festivals in Nordhausen and Sondershausen for years and are now indispensable. Musical delights in summer temperatures, with a cool drink or other delicacies, guarantee a special experience.


Coffee Concert for the Roland Festival

Petersberg

This season, the Loh Orchestra will once again be giving open-air concerts in a relaxed atmosphere. The orchestra's performances have been a permanent fixture at the two major town festivals in Nordhausen and Sondershausen for years and are now indispensable. Musical delights in summer temperatures, with a cool drink or other delicacies, guarantee a special experience.

concert for the Roland Festival

Concert for the Residenzfest 2024

castle courtyard

In this Loh concert we combine a promising musical program, open-air atmosphere and culinary delicacies to create a special evening. The overture to Gioacchino Rossini's opera "Il barbiere di Siviglia" exudes airy lightness, while Hector Berlioz explores the tragic facets of love in his famous song cycle. The expressive melodies and subtle instrumentation are unparalleled. The strings of the Loh Orchestra accompany the break in the open air in front of the octagon house with Mozart's famous serenade "Eine kleine Nachtmusik", during which you can also indulge in culinary delights.

4th Loh concert

Mozart the revolutionary? With works such as the Piano Quartet in G minor, the composer was indeed exploring unknown territory: not only was the instrumentation new, but also the uncompromising, even grim tone that dominates the opening movement. The 2nd String Quartet, which Alexander Borodin dedicated to his wife, is completely different: it looks back on 20 years of happy partnership. Carl Maria von Weber, on the other hand, lets the five instruments act like figures on an opera stage in his B major quintet, with the clarinet as the undisputed prima donna.

4th Chamber Concert

The meteoric rise of Stevie Wonder, who went blind shortly after birth, began when he was just 11 years old. With songs like "My Cherie Amour" and "Superstition," he renewed and revolutionized "black music" in the early 1970s and became one of the most successful entertainers in the USA. Stevie Wonder has received 25 Grammys, a Golden Globe, and an Oscar in 1984 for "I Just Called to Say I Love You." Three fantastic singers and proven specialists in "black music" lead you into the rich world of Stevie Wonder, the magician of blues, soul, and funk, supported by the orchestral arrangements of Viktor Åslund.  


Stevie Wonder - The Legend

Hardly any other rock band has achieved such lasting success as the Beatles. Our singers, accompanied by the Loh Orchestra, bring these golden years of pop history back to life on the Nordhausen stage. Under the motto "All You Need Is Love", visitors can expect an unforgettable evening full of highlights such as "Yesterday", "Strawberry Fields" and "A Hard Day's Night". Not only die-hard Beatles fans will be thrilled!

The Beatles in Concert

With Louis Spohr's Notturno op. 34, a work dedicated to the court of Sondershausen returns to its destination. Here, Spohr continued the great tradition of harmony music in the royal city. By using percussion instruments, which had come to Europe as "Janissary music" during the Turkish wars, he also sets striking rhythmic accents. Then the strings take the floor. Leoš Janáček's seven-movement string suite "Idyla" impressively shows the fascination that the folk music of his homeland exerted on the 24-year-old. Dvořák echoes are no coincidence here, as Janáček had recently gotten to know and appreciate his colleague, who was 13 years older.  

3rd Castle Concert

Painting in tones – that has always been one of the specialties of French music. Claude Debussy's "Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun" is probably the best-known example: the heat shimmers, the sun blazes, and erotic fantasies wander. But "Spring Morning" by Lili Boulanger, who died young, also conjures up colourful images before our inner eyes. It is hard to believe that such a light-flooded, life-loving piece was written when the highly talented composer was already struggling with death.

6th Symphony Concert

At the end of the 19th century, Great Britain was considered a pioneering nation in practically all areas, but it lagged behind in music. Men like Cecil Forsyth did real pioneering work: the violist from London not only wrote important musicological texts, but also gave the country the first solo concert for his instrument. First performed in 1903, it showcases the lyrical abilities of the viola wonderfully. And it inspired successors: colleagues such as Vaughan Williams, Walton, Bax and Bridge also wrote solo works for viola.

5th Symphony Concert

"Missa in angustiis" ("Mass in times of distress") is a truly telling title. Joseph Haydn's D minor work does indeed tell of current hardships and the hope for a better future. The music clearly refers to the war events of that time, the end of which was still far from in sight in 1798. In 1815, the very year when peace finally returned to Europe, the 18-year-old Franz Schubert wrote his 3rd Symphony, in just nine days, as it is said. The youthful stroke of genius seems to capture in music the spirit of optimism after the victory over Napoleon.

3rd Loh concert

St. Blasii Church

The Kyffhäusersparkasse presents a chamber concert by the CelLohlisten with members of the Loh Orchestra Sondershausen.

Tickets are available at all branches of the Kyffhäuser Sparkasse. The proceeds go to the Arterner Tafel!



anniversary chamber concert

Artern

What a variety of expressive possibilities lies in the instrumentation of this chamber concert! Folkloristic tones, sometimes playful and exuberant, sometimes thoughtful, are conjured up by Aram Chatschaturian's piano trio. In contrast, the duo for violin and cello, with which Maurice Ravel created a monument to his late colleague Claude Debussy, is of gripping intensity and a masterpiece that is far too little known. Brahms' clarinet quintet, one of his last compositions, provides the melancholy conclusion.

3rd Chamber Concert

4th Symphony Concert

These concerts are just the thing for parents who want to get their children excited about music. Chamber music groups from the Loh Orchestra introduce the little ones to music in a playful way, introduce the instruments and encourage them to join in.

2nd Pillow Concert

This concert offers a real discovery: the lively Concertino by Prague composer Erwin Schulhoff for the unusual combination of flute, viola and double bass. And Schulhoff was not the only one who liked this instrumentation. Milhaud's student Pierre Max Dubois also demonstrated how well the three instruments fit together. Also on the program: trios by Jean-Marie Leclair and Joseph Haydn in appropriate arrangements as well as solo and duo literature from the 1980s.

2nd Chamber Concert

Together with musical stars Eve Rades (most recently in "Doctor Zhivago") and Tobias Joch ("Addams Family"), the Loh Orchestra dedicates itself to the big and small wishes and dreams of the most diverse film and musical characters from cartoons, feature films and musicals. Whether their protagonists move around in the jungle, under water, in ice, desert or fantasy worlds, their songs and duets are always the emotional highlights of the stories. Ariel, Aladdin, Elsa, the Beauty or Simba and all their names dream of love, a better life, wealth and much more. We invite young and old to lose themselves with us in these happy dreams.

carnival concert

At the 31st Sondershausen Master Class, young course participants from near and far will work intensively with the renowned trumpeter Reinhold Friedrich, professor at the Karlsruhe University of Music and sought-after lecturer. At the end and climax, together with the Loh Orchestra Sondershausen, they will present not only the instrumental and musical skills they have expanded during the course, but also a colorful excerpt from the rich concert repertoire for trumpet.  

2nd Loh concert

We have 007, the world's most famous secret agent, to thank for numerous rousing, cool and "hot" songs. Each individual Bond film (there are 25 in total!) has its own theme song. This evening we'll be playing a number of them, such as "Live And Let Die", "Golden Eye" and "Skyfall", and will take you into the glittering world of gangsters and villains with stories and anecdotes about James Bond. Jeannette Wernecke, a native of Nordhausen, who already played the female lead in the musical "Jedermann", and Peter Saurbier, a true all-rounder as an author, actor, performer and producer, will serve up this show mix shaken, not stirred...

James Bond in Concert

Small ensemble - great sound imagination. Mozart ensures that this formula works when he conjures up a wealth of tones with just a few instruments in his B major symphony of 1779. Alessandro Marcello's oboe concerto is tailored entirely to the soloist. The second movement in particular, with its touching cantilena, is very popular, also thanks to Johann Sebastian Bach's adaptation into a harpsichord concerto. Marcello's contemporary Arcangelo Corelli gets by completely without wind instruments in his famous Christmas concert. Here it is the lively interplay between soloists and tutti that provides variety. Edward Elgar's String Serenade in E minor op. 20 forms a romantic, yearning haven of calm within the program.

Start the new year in Spain? Musically, that's no problem! Pavel Baleff and the Loh Orchestra Sondershausen take you on a journey to a country that has inspired many composers. In Andalusia, for example, famous operas by Giovanni Paisiello and Conradin Kreutzer are performed. Through Russian glasses, we look at the Iberian Peninsula with brilliant orchestral pieces by Mikhail Glinka and Peter I. Tchaikovsky. The Spanish national heroes Don Quixote and El Cid make an appearance, and there is also the ballet music from Giuseppe Verdi's "Don Carlo". Zarzuela, the Spanish version of the operetta, is also represented with a few examples, before the concert ends appropriately: with Georges Bizet's "Carmen" suite.

New Year's Concert

Adventure Mine

Do you like to make travel plans at the beginning of the year? Then let yourself be inspired by traveling composers who have translated their dream destinations, holiday oases and creative breaks into entertaining music. For our trip you don't have to get on the train or the car, you just need to come to our New Year's concert and off you go with Saint-Saëns to Aragon, with Rossini to Reims, with Johann Strauss to St. Petersburg or to the roses in the south. The Loh Orchestra, the baritone Florian Tavic and Julian Gaudiano will be your tour guides and will musically fuel your wanderlust.

Culture and Congress Center

The act of creation has inspired many musicians to create works: Rameau, Haydn, Milhaud, to name just a few. The Russian Andrei Petrov, film composer and friend of Shostakovich, also belongs in this series. His ballet "The Creation of the World" became popular after its premiere at the Mariinsky Theater in 1971, especially in the concert version. Petrov's message - humanity - is as relevant today as it was then, and the music also surprises with its freshness and lightness.

3rd Symphony Concert

This time, the oboe is the focus of the Sondershausen master class. Young talents from near and far are being taught by Washington Barella. He has been a professor at the Berlin University of the Arts since 2012, gives concerts internationally and has been principal oboist in the SWR Symphony Orchestra Baden-Baden and Freiburg since 1992. As usual, the participants will perform the final concert together with the Loh Orchestra Sondershausen, here under the direction of Michael Helmrath, himself a long-time oboist with the Munich Philharmonic. You can expect a highly diverse program, as the oboe is one of the few wind instruments that has been popular in practically all eras from the Baroque to the modern era.

The stage is set for all sorts of breakneck, virtuoso and comical performances by the various instrument groups and individual soloists of the Loh Orchestra. Julian Gaudiano leads the orchestra through a colorful program in which everyone can show off their craziest tricks and gimmicks, their sound confidence and instrumental mastery, and enter into a high-spirited musical competition. And just like in a real circus, the musical ring naturally includes funny animals and winking clowns.

Dank der Unterstützung vor allem durch den Förderverein Loh- Orchester Sondershausen e. V. sind wir seit letzter Spielzeit im Besitz zweier fabrikneuer Harfen, die in diesem Konzert präsentiert werden: Unsere Harfenistin Cecilia Domuncu wird Solostücke zu Gehör bringen und mit einigen ihrer Orchesterkolleg:innen musizieren.

4. Kammerkonzert

Bankettsaal

With the song "Waterloo", the then unknown Swedish pop band ABBA won the Eurovision Song Contest in Brighton in 1974. This performance was the start of a rapid international career. With "SOS", "Mamma Mia", "Dancing Queen", "Thank You for the Music" and "The Winner Takes It All", the four musicians took the hearts of millions of people by storm and the charts around the world. Experience the unforgettable music of a band that wrote pop history like no other!

ABBA in Concert

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's "Magic Flute" is about, among other things, the magical power of the flute. The melodies from the opera were famous since the premiere and became real hits. As a result, arrangements for smaller ensembles were quickly created, such as the one for flute quartet by Franz Heinrich Ehrenfried. In this pillow concert, we discover the flute and string instruments through the wonderful music and the fairytale story of Pamina and Tamino, Papagena and Papageno, and Sarastro and the Queen of the Night.

The place: the main camp VIII A near Görlitz. The time: the Second World War. Instruments available: clarinet, piano, violin and cello. Not ideal conditions for musical world literature, but Olivier Messiaen managed to do just that at the turn of the year 1940/41 while he was a German prisoner of war. His quartet is as much an end-time work that explores the depths of human existence as it is a vision of the future that hears the divine in birdsong. 80 years after the liberation of the Buchenwald and Mittelbau-Dora concentration camps, Messiaen's music is placed alongside selected texts.

5th Chamber Concert

Watch out, there's something to discover here! The 3rd Loh concert features two opera specialists and a film composer with spectacular instrumental works. Like so many before him, Antonio Salieri, who has chosen to live in Vienna, wrote variations on the popular "Follia" bass. He took the original meaning of "Follia", "madness", very seriously and created extravagant miniatures with highlights for violin, harp, percussion and wind instruments. The fact that his compatriot, the Oscar-winning film music composer Nino Rota, was also at home in classical genres is demonstrated by his bassoon concerto, which is also crowned by a series of variations. The concert concludes with Weber's 1st Symphony, a work full of energy and dynamism that already gives an idea of ​​the later creator of "Freischütz".

In April 1945, the Buchenwald and Mittelbau-Dora concentration camps were liberated by American soldiers. How do you commemorate these events musically? The best way is to let victims of that time have their say. Viktor Ullmann, a student of Arnold Schönberg and Alexander Zemlinsky, was deported to the Theresienstadt concentration camp in 1942 because of his Jewish descent. Looking back, it is hard to imagine the creative energy he mustered there despite the most unfortunate circumstances. The musical setting of Rilke's legendary "Cornet" story, a large-scale project for speaker and orchestra, was also created there. With it, Ullmann attempted to place the text, often shortened to soldier's prose, on a different, more humane level. The composer was murdered in Auschwitz in 1944.

The common prejudice that Haydn and Mozart had little sympathy for the transverse flute is amply refuted by their music. It is true, however, that the flute was considered an instrument for domestic use and the corresponding literature was rather modest. Haydn's and Mozart's flute quartets, on the other hand, despite all their melodic charm, always meet the requirements of sophisticated chamber music. Mozart wrote his C major work on behalf of a Dutch doctor in Mannheim, while Haydn's D major quartet was probably written for the Esterházy court. The concert is rounded off with two colorful chamber music works from the beginning of the 20th century: a flute quartet by the Swiss Volkmar Andreae and the first movement of the string trio by the French composer Jean Cras.

When you think of serenades, you probably think of summer evenings, nature, conviviality, and cheerfulness. Mozart captured this relaxed mood in numerous works. But serenades can also focus on the dark side of life, on the hidden and unspoken. This is what Benjamin Britten had in mind when he set six poems, all of which revolve around the theme of "night," to music in the middle of the Second World War. He uses the unusual instrumentation of tenor, horn, and strings to create sound effects that range from sparse to sensual, from defiant to melancholic. Antonín Dvořák, on the other hand, gave his wind serenade of 1878 a slightly nostalgic touch, effectively combined with Bohemian dance music. And here, too, there is a festival of tonal colors!

There is rarely so much greatness in a small piece in a single work. Schubert's Octet for three wind instruments and five strings is both chamber and orchestral music, it is a cheerful serenade and symphonic seriousness, it presents eight individuals as a close-knit community. With this work, Schubert wanted nothing less than to "pave the way to the great symphony" after a serious illness, and he succeeded in doing so in a fascinating way, relaxed and highly concentrated at the same time. Almost 60 minutes of pure musical enjoyment - that is his Octet. The violinist Annegret Klenke leads the work as a guest, the primaria of the multi-award-winning Klenke Quartet, which was founded in Weimar in 1991.

6th Chamber Concert

Samuel Coleridge-Taylor – never heard of him? Well, the son of an Englishwoman and a doctor from Sierra Leone, he caused a sensation in London around 1900. His "Hiawatha" cantata was a sensational success, and Elgar personally supported him. Coleridge-Taylor's declared aim was the symbiosis of African and European musical traditions, which he achieved most impressively in his Symphonic Variations op. 63 on the spiritual "I'm Troubled in Mind", a 20-minute orchestral masterpiece

Franz Liszt once described the Loh Orchestra, which had always remained loyal to him, as a "great miracle, locked up in a small town" . It is therefore only logical that the Thuringian Liszt Biennale will also stop in Sonderhausen in 2025, this year under the motto "Landscapes of the Soul". Liszt's E-flat major concerto provides insights into such an inner landscape, as it occupied the composer for more than 20 years. The framework is made up of works by Liszt's son-in-law Richard Wagner and Ferruccio Busoni, who followed in Liszt's footsteps as a pianist and lecturer. His "Berceuse élégiaque" is a son's touching farewell to his deceased mother.

Loh-Orchester Sondershausen

8 - 23 Dec, 2024

Christmas concert

8 - 22 Dec, 2024

1st Pillow Concert

1 - 12 Jan, 2025

New Year's Concert

1 - 2 Feb, 2025

3rd Symphony Concert

Feb 26, 2025

2nd Loh concert

Dec 11, 2024

1st Loh concert

8 - 22 Dec, 2024

1st Pillow Concert

Loh-Orchester Sondershausen