Festival Academy for Chamber Music and Composition

New Music forms a natural and key part of the Festival Academy of the Heidelberger Frühling festival. It is an integral part of program design and stands in the tradition of the Heidelberg Atelier initiated by Wolfgang Rihm and Matthias Pintscher which has promoted young composers like Márton Illés, Ulrich Kreppein, Samy Moussa or Marko Nikodijevic for many years. Forming the focus of the 2015 Academy for Chamber Music and Composition is the American composer and pianist Frederic Rzewski. For Rzewski art and artists have the opportunity, indeed if not the obligation, to reflect critically on current affairs and to use the artistic opportunities to put societal, political and social issues in the public eye. And the 2015 Festival Academy of Heidelberger Frühling is organized very much in this spirit.
In a three-day workshop Rzewski the composer will discuss his role and stance in composition with the selected composition grant recipients while Rzewski the musician will deepen interpretational questions with the chamber music grant recipients and rehearse and perform his works with them. Each of the events of the Festival Academy is open to all participating grant recipients.
The young composers then receive the commission to compose a chamber music work that reflects the experiences and impressions of the Festival Academy to be performed in the following year at the 20^th anniversary of Heidelberger Frühling in 2016. Foremost and experienced mentors like Igor Levit and Matthias Pintscher, Frederic Rzewski, Jörg Widmann, Matan Porat, Veronika Eberle and Torleif Thedéen will be on hand to assist grant recipients. In addition to workshops and classes the mentors will also hold impulse and lunch lectures. Furthermore, the mentors will organize five evening concerts and a final concert to conclude the Festival Academy.
 

March 30 – April 11, 2015
Stadthalle and Alte Aula at Heidelberg University
 

Further Information:
www.heidelberger-fruehling.de