The 2020 international Ernst von Siemens Music Prize goes to Tabea Zimmermann! “This prize (…) honours her incorruptible musicianship, her authentic and personal approach as well as her artistic integrity, in addition to her uncompromising standards of quality, the new life she has breathed into the viola as an instrument, her dedication to contemporary music and, last but not least, her incredible contribution to education”, wrote the foundation about the award winner....

From 2 February Alejo Pérez will conduct a total of ten performances of Franz Schreker's last opera Der Schmied von Gent in Antwerp, Ghent and Bruges. The "great magic opera in three acts", first performed in 1932 and then almost forgotten, will be staged in Flanders in the new production of Ersan Mondtag....

On 2 February, at the five-day Zeitinsel Kurtág Festival at the Konzerthaus Dortmund, the Arditti Quartet will perform works by Anton Webern and György Ligeti, as well as Kurtág's String Quartets op. 1 and op. 28, the 12 Microludes for String Quartet op. 13 and the Six moments musicaux for String Quartet op. 44. Caroline Melzer will also be present at the festival with two concerts on 5 and 6 February....

From 2 February onwards, Titus Engel will conduct BORIS at the Stuttgart Opera House: directed by Paul-Georg Dittrich, Modest Musssorgski's Boris Godunow will be intertwined with the world premiere of Sergej Nevsky's Second-Hand Time, based on Svetlana Alexievich's book of the same name. The new production can be seen on seven dates through 13 April....

The ECLAT Festival celebrates its 40th anniversary in early February. The Arditti Quartet will be part of the festival in the most diverse combinations and concert formats on four of the five festival days - from 6 to 9 February at the Theaterhaus Stuttgart. On 8 February, the ensemble will also perform with the conductor Michael Wendeberg in an orchestra concert with the SWR Symphony Orchestra....

"My mother tongue is Bartók, and Bartók's mother tongue was Beethoven," explained György Kurtág, whose composition Quasi una fantasia is the focus of Bas Wiegers' debut concert with the SWR Symphony Orchestra. On 30 January, the Freiburg E-Werk will feature this Kurtág piece and Beethoven's piano sonata by the same name, as well as Gustav Mahler's string orchestra version of Beethoven's String Quartet op. 95....

Jeroen Berwaerts will once again perform with Ensemble Resonanz and Alexander Melnikov, both of whom he has worked with for many years, for a new exciting project. A performance on 27 January in the Pierre Boulez Saal Berlin will be followed by two further concerts on 28 and 29 January in the Small Hall of the Elbphilharmonie in Hamburg....

After his debut in 2017, Maximilian Hornung accepted a second invitation to the Bürgenstock Winter Festival in Switzerland. The artistic directors Andreas Ottensamer and José Gallardo have put together a varied chamber music programme, running from 21 to 26 January, which will be dedicated to, among others, the jubilees Beethoven and Bruch....

After her celebrated Düsseldorf debut at the end of May/beginning of June 2019 with the Düsseldorf Symphony Orchestra as soloist in Clara Schumann's Piano Concerto in A Minor op. 7, Mariam Batsashvili can be heard again in the Rhine metropolis on 26 January with a recital in the Robert Schumann Hall. She will play works by Bach, Mozart, Liszt and Schumann....

During the Beethoven anniversary year, the Beethoven-Haus Bonn invites you to a jubilee edition of its annual Beethoven Week: the complete chamber music of the composer will be presented in 16 concerts from 17 January to 9 February, grouped into four concert blocks. Tabea Zimmermann, artistic director of the festival since 2015, executed the programme planning once again....

On New Year's Day, Marie Heeschen will make her role debut as Marzelline in the premiere of Beethoven's Fidelio at Theater Bonn. The production, directed by Volker Lösch, puts a focus on the composer right at the beginning of the Beethoven anniversary year and shows the work’s relevance for our times by referring to the political situation in Turkey....

OUT NOW: François-Frédéric Guy celebrates the start of the Beethoven year 2020 with a play-conduct recording of the complete piano concertos of the great composer. Together with the Sinfonia Varsovia, the Beethoven specialist presents his interpretation of the works at the piano and on the podium in a CD box released on Printemps des Arts de Monte-Carlo.
Click here for the CD....