FEELINGS OF HAPPINESS

One master over another: "If I could only take one work with me to a desert island, I would choose Koroliov's Bach, because I would listen to this record over and over again until my last breath, starving and dying of thirst". That's what the composer György Ligeti said about the pianist Evgeni Koroliov and nothing more really needs to be said. He is an absolutely exceptional phenomenon who touches us deeply with his playing. He taught at the HfMT until 2015.

To mark the 50th anniversary of Dmitri Shostakovich's death, he will be giving a piano recital at the Forum with his long-time duo partner Lyupka Hadzigeorgieva. Those who would also like to experience him as an inspiring teacher can attend the master class for our piano students on the following day.

Piano recital on February 1 in the Forum
Master class on February 2 in the orchestra studio

When it comes to contemporary music theater, the HfMT has recently emerged as a true stronghold. Time and again, there are productions in which the composition and directing departments work closely together and develop joint productions.

In Under Construction as part of this year's Opera Concisa at Wiesendamm, this work will be part of the program. Under the artistic supervision of Gordon Kampe (composition) and David Hermann and Christian Poewe (direction), students of opera, composition, musical theater direction and dramaturgy will create independent musical theater miniatures, wrestle with texts, themes and music and bring them to the stage together.

It doesn't get any fresher than this!

Opera Concisa on February 6 and 7 at Wiesendamm

Reflection, deconstruction, contextualization, staging, mediation, relationship...
Three insights into laboratories on how we rethink what we do and make it accessible to our audience:

Refractions on February 7 comes at the end of a workshop with the Berlin Impromptu Orchestra, grabbing Debussy, Stravinsky, Vitali and Poulenc and shaking up traditional musical practice through improvisation, movement and recomposition.

Musethica focuses on the audience and brings music to people who are unable to attend a concert. After a week of concerts at "non-concert venues", the participating musicians will present their program in the Musethica chamber concert on 14 February in the Mendelssohn Hall.

The concert with the ambiguous title Zwischendrin on February 15 was created by the winners of the Elise Meyer Competition 2025 as part of an experimental workshop together with pianist and concert designer Hanni Liang. The central question here is how the award-winning musicians will approach the holistic design of a top-class concert.

This year, the third-year drama students will be taking three external venues by storm with their speech evening, because this time everything revolves around the theme of "Storm". In preparation, the students, under the artistic direction of Natascha Clasing and Franziska Eisenschmidt, have approached the material in a researching, searching and open-ended, but above all diverse and in-depth way through all genres and epochs, in order to then summarize the selected texts in a spoken evening.

Being able to perform this outside of the HfMT's rehearsal stages at three different venues, engaging with different spaces and sensing different audiences is invaluable for the training on the one hand and a highlight in the calendar of events at these venues on the other.

Im Sturm! on February 18 at the Harburg Town Hall, on February 21 at the Bad Oldesloh KUB and on February 22 at the Ernst Barlach Haus.

In October, violinist and founding member of the renowned string quartet Cuarteto Casals Abel Tomàs Realp took over the chamber music class at the HfMT (see news from 9/2025 ) and immediately immersed himself in intensive and rewarding work. On February 20, the first fruits of this work can be seen when a total of 6 ensembles (including 3 string quartets, 2 piano trios and a piano quintet) will perform works by Schubert, Mendelssohn, Schumann, Brahms, Tchaikovsky, Shostakovich and Hartmann.

Abel Tomàs considers it a "great honor to be able to present my class recital at the Laeiszhalle Hamburg in my first semester as professor of chamber music at the HfMT. Both the students and I myself are very excited to be able to offer this concert to the public of this wonderful city." THANK YOU, dear Abel Tomàs, for your great commitment in these first few months - we are looking forward to the concert!

Chamber music evening on February 20 in the small hall of the Laeiszhalle

Following the successful launch in February 2025, we are looking forward to another promising collaboration with the Deichtorhallen. As part of the current exhibition Huguette Caland - A Life in a few Lines, students of the Concert LAB seminar are developing an independent curatorial concept in which music and visual art enter into a new relationship with each other.

Social norms, ideals, rejection, loneliness and Huguette Caland's childhood memories are dealt with in the exhibition. What does that do to a musician? With an actor? How does it resonate? What creative scope opens up? Inspired by Caland's work, texts, compositions, scenes and settings were found and designed, which lead through the exhibition in a one-hour tour and create their own work of art in dialog with the pictures.

Huguette Caland x Concert LAB on February 21 and 22.

What began in October 2022 will now come to an end when the university's symphony orchestra, conducted by Ulrich Windfuhr, presents Beethoven's 9th Symphony as the crowning finale to this series. We were able to listen to symphonies 1-8 in a wide variety of contexts - sometimes as a festive setting for our change of president, sometimes contrasted with modern orchestral literature, sometimes in pure form and sometimes enriched by an academic keynote lecture. Now we are entering the home straight.

The upcoming concert will feature a work by the Finnish composer Kaija Saariaho alongside Beethoven's monumental 9th Symphony: Lumière et Pesanteur (Light and Gravity) creates a fragile world of sound which, with reference to the philosopher Simone Weil, deals with questions about the presence of God and creates a charming contrast to the "jubilant Beethoven".

Symphony concerts on February 24 and 25 at the Forum
(there is also a supporter offer - see below)

As part of an interdisciplinary project, the Studio for Early Music is once again bringing a baroque opera to the stage. Artaserse by Johann Adolf Hasse after the libretto by Pietro Metastasio is based on historical motifs from the 5th century BC and deals with claims to power and intrigues for the throne in the Persian royal family, at the end of which virtue triumphs over betrayal.

In the semi-staged performance, students from various disciplines sing and act under the artistic direction of Mark Tucker and Isolde Kittel-Zerer.

Artaserse on February 27 and 28 at the Rudolf Steiner Haus

We cordially invite all supporters and all those who would like to become supporters at short notice to one of the symphony concerts on February 24 or 25.

Are you already a supporter? Then all you need to do is reply to this newsletter with your name, the desired date and a request for up to 2 tickets.

Are you interested in becoming a supporter and thus directly supporting the students of the HfMT? Then you will find all the information here and are cordially invited to join and benefit directly from our February offer.

...can be found as usual in our calendar of events

Yours sincerely,
Your HfMT