Classical Music in Germany
These portals start you swinging. Here you can browse databases and plan your musical training or your next visit to a concert.
800 Years St. Thomas Boys Choir
It is Leipzig’s oldest cultural institution. The world famous St. Thomas Boys Choir has celebrated its 800th anniversary in the year 2012. Aged between nine and 18, the almost 100 choirboys will be touring as far as Asia in this special year. The wonderful sight and sound of the choir can also be enjoyed in Germany where they will be performing regularly, above all in their home town of Leipzig.
www.thomaskirche.orghttp://www.thomaskirche.org
Bach Week in Ansbach
Personal flair, stylish surroundings and a unique historical setting – although top-class musicians and ensembles have always set the tone of the Ansbach Bach Week, the music festival has never been a place for celebrity worship. Johann Sebastian Bach has always been at the heart of this summer music festival in the heart of Franconia, which was launched in 1947, making it one of the oldest and most renowned music festivals in Germany.
Bayreuth Festival
In 1876, Richard Wagner fulfilled his dream of having a festival venue of his very own. And today the descendents of this famous composer still organize the Bayreuth Festival in his honor with resounding success for five weeks during the summer. The program features the works of Wagner – excursions into German mythology.
Beethoven House in Bonn
Are you a Beethoven fan? At this website you can re-discover the famous composer born in Bonn in 1770: the “Digital Beethoven House” offers a wealth of delights for your eyes and ears, and details on Ludwig van Beethoven’s biography and works, his intellectual environment and how he affected history.
Beethoven Festival Bonn
Ludwig van Beethoven‘s passionate compositions have revolutionized the world of music. Bonn, the city of his birth, reminds us of this heritage each fall during the Beethoven Festival. Stars and talented newcomers present his masterpieces classically as well as playfully in swing or jazz style. The program also includes exhibitions, readings, films and debut performances of commissioned work.
Donaueschingen Festival
In Donaueschingen, in southwestern Baden-Wüttemberg, they do not just stage concerts. History is written here. For almost one hundred years now, the Donaueschingen Festival has been the meeting place for the avantgarde of contemporary music.
Mecklenburg-Western Pomeranian Music Festival
Classical concerts in the most picturesque of settings: The “Mecklenburg-Vorpommern Festival” delights visitors and locals with melody and song from June to September. More than one hundred concerts are presented throughout the state in churches, barns, castles and manors. The unusual cultural feast for the ears is one of the largest music festivals in Germany.
Handel Festival
George Frideric Handel (born as Georg Friedrich Händel) composed more than 600 works. The Handel Festival in Halle, where Handel was born, draws on this rich treasure trove of music. Every June, cantatas and chamber music duets, oratorios and serenades are all part of the program in the city on the Saale River. The famous “Messiah“ opera is performed each year in the Market Church in which the Baroque composer learned how to play the organ.
International Bach Academy Stuttgart
You can make organs and harpsichords play and choirs sing on the website of the International Bach Academy in Stuttgart. This foundation enjoys an international reputation as an authority in everything there is to do with Bach. However, the ensembles do not limit their repertoires to the works composed by this famous choirmaster and organist. At www.bachakademie.de you can download the complete program for the concert season onto your own PC.
Young German Philharmonic Orchestra
The first rung on the career ladder: the Junge Deutsche Philharmonie offers students at German music conservatories an opportunity to gain orchestral experience. Applicants must first qualify through auditions. Then they can take part up to the age of 28, or until the end of their music studies. During university vacations the musicians meet regularly in the spring and late summer for a working session lasting about nine days. This is followed by a tour of major concert halls like the Alte Oper in Frankfurt, the Philharmonie in Berlin and the Gewandhaus in Leipzig.
Classical Music Online
“Old-fashioned” indeed: friends of classical music have long been meeting online, for example at www.klassik.com. This website combines editorial offerings with a link list and a database.
Central-German Baroque Music initiative
Baroque music is something joyful and sensuous; it is full of colourful variety and deep emotional expression; it is diverse and dramatic, entertaining, playful and profound. The Central-German Baroque Music initiative has set itself the task of bringing this to the public’s attention. It targets the Baroque fan, the music lover, the cultural tourist, the connoisseur of cultural events, the enterprising, the curious and the specialist.
www.mitteldeutsche-barockmusik.de
Munich Opera Festival
The culmination of the Munich opera season: at the Munich Opera Festival, you will have many an opportunity to experience ballet performances, concerts and evenings of song, not to mention any number of different opera productions. On the “Opera for Everyone“ weekend, music fans are invited to attend a free, open-air performance per live video broadcast.
www.muenchner-opern-festspiele.de
www.achtbruecken.de
Eight bridges was launched in 2011 as a successor to the MusikTriennale Köln music festival in Cologne, as is devoted to modern music. Every year at the beginning of May during the cross-genre festival not only renowned artists and ensembles from the contemporary music scene but also exponents of Cologne’s liberal music scene take to the stage in this cathedral city.
Rheingau Music Festival
Music fans regularly swarm to the Rhine District on the north shore of the Rhine River from June to September. This sunny region between Frankfurt, Wiesbaden, Rüdesheim and Lorch is transformed into a concert stage of international renown each year. The Rheingau Music Festival is the largest classical music event in Hessen. It presents classical music, as well as jazz and readings at a wide variety of different venues.
www.rheingau-musik-festival.de
Schleswig-Holstein Music Festival
A delight to your ears: the international Schleswig-Holstein Music Festival (SHMF) has attracted thousands of fans of classical music and jazz each year to the “land between the seas“ in the north of Germany since it first took place in 1986. Since the music of different countries is featured each year, concert-goers become acquainted with a variety of international musical tastes, and young talent takes its cue from established musicians.
Schumann Network
Robert Schumann (1810-1856) was a German composer and pianist of the Romantic period. The Schumann Portal honours him, his wife Clara, and the locations where he worked in Zwickau, Leipzig, Düsseldorf and Bonn. The Schumann Forum (artists as ambassadors for Schumann) and the Schumann Journal now also have their own special pages on the website.
Bach Archive Foundation, Leipzig
Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750) was one of the most famous and important German musicians. The Bach Archive in Leipzig sees itself as a musical centre of excellence in the city where Johann Sebastian Bach wrote many of his works. Its purpose is to conduct research into the life, work and reception history of the composer and the extensive Bach family of musicians, to preserve his legacy and raise its profile in general education.
Bach Festival in Thuringia
The Bach Festival in Thuringia invites you to enjoy culture at historical locations. Concerts, guided tours and films illuminate the life and work of Johann Sebastian Bach at the largest music festival in Thuringia. Every year in spring, the melodies can be heard throughout the country – presented classically, but interpreted in a contemporary way.
Association of Music Museums
A very special kind of tour leads from the Mozart House in Augsburg to the Beethoven House in Bonn and the Robert Schumann House in Zwickau. The tour plan is provided by the Working Group on Music Museums in Germany, which is dedicated to preserving the heritage of musicians and composers who worked in Germany. About forty houses are members of the Working Group.