Deutsche Kammerakademie
Neuss am Rhein.
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Photo: DKNR |
The work of the Deutsche Kammerakademie Neuss centres on the classical repertoire. Joseph Haydn and his brother Michael, Mozart, Beethoven and Schubert, together with their contemporary Boccherini, are the pillars of the edifice.
Around it, innovatively designed programmes, experimental combinations and mainly high-profile CD recordings are grouped in such a way that during the thirty years of its existence the ensemble has become acknowledged as one of the outstanding contributors to international musical life. Inspired music-making, a manifest commitment from the players at every desk to give of their very best, a high level of personal involvement and an untiring readiness for further development are hallmarks of the Deutsche Kammerakademie Neuss.
The credit for the fact that these features have been sensitively cultivated over many years, and are still present today, may well be due to their new chief conductor, Lavard Skou-Larsen, who took up his post in 2005/06 and is now already presenting his fourth season. Once again a repertoire has been expertly chosen: it is both adventurous and enjoyable, instructive yet never dry, and bound to delight the Kammerakademie’s connoisseurs, loyal fans and critics alike.
These results are noticed well beyond its home city and local region. In the summer of 2008 the Deutsche Kammerakademie was, for the third time, the resident orchestra at the Internationale Sommerakademie Mozarteum, held within the context of the Salzburg Festival. Forthcoming engagements include a tour with the Ensemble Wien-Berlin, a group consisting mainly of solo wind players from the Vienna and Berlin Philharmonic Orchestras. During this tour the Kammerakademie under the baton of Hansjörg Schellenberger will join the Philharmonie Essen in the celebrations for the fifth anniversary of its new concert hall.
The history of the orchestra is inseparably linked with numerous musical discoveries, commissioned compositions, premieres and first performances of rediscovered works. Amongst these mention should be made of Wolfgang Danzmayr’s Transkript, premiered by the Kammerakademie Neuss at the International Sommerakademie Mozarteum 2007; this was followed in February 2008 by the German premiere of Le Tombeau de Virgile by Philippe Hersant.
No less important are co-productions with other eminent performance partners. The orchestra’s collaboration with soloists from the Stuttgart Wind Academy began in 1992, and since 1996 it has had contact with the wind players of the Sächsische Staatskapelle Dresden. Bruno Giuranna, Aurèle Nicolet, Nikita Magaloff, Radu Lupu, Isabelle van Keulen, Lena Neudauer, Frank-Peter Zimmermann, Nigel Kennedy and Yehudi Menuhin are just some of the star performers who have taken part in concerts with the Kammerakademie.
Meanwhile a discography of nearly 30 CDs speaks for itself. Firms such as cpo and Capriccio have long been turning to the Neuss ensemble when recording masterworks that have been forgotten through some quirk of fate or simply through neglect. Carl Heinrich Graun’s opera Montezuma and the symphonies of Boccherini and Michael Haydn should be mentioned here, along with music by ETA Hoffmann, whose melodrama Dirna and music for Das Kreuz an der Ostsee have attracted considerable attention. A project now in preparation is the extension of the cpo series to include the bassoon concertos of Antonio Rosetti; in these Eckhart Hübner will be both soloist and conductor of the Deutsche Kammerakademie Neuss.
The ensemble has received funding from the city of Neuss since 1983. Sponsors such as the Neusser Sparkasse, 3M and Mercedes-Benz also provide valuable backing. Special thanks are also due to the ART MENTOR FOUNDATION, Lucerne, which has been supporting the orchestra since 2007.
Deutsche Kammerakademie Neuss am Rhein
Oberstraße 17
41460 Neuss am Rhein
Phone: 02131 904 116