The Mizmorim Chamber Music Festival was founded in 2015 as a celebration of the diverse encounters between Jewish music and Western art music. It owes its name to the biblical Psalms, Mizmorim in Hebrew. The current festival edition is dedicated to the theme of flight, expulsion and diaspora under the motto ‘Exile’.
Ilya Gringolts, artistic advisor to Mizmorim for several years, will open the festival on 30 January as director of the Mizmorim Festival Ensemble with Stravinsky's Soldier's Tale, which will be performed with electronic interventions by Janiv Oron.
The Gringolts Quartet can be heard in several concerts: The Songs of Exile programme features works by Erich Itor Kahn, Hanns Eisler and Kurt Weill, interpreted by Ema Grčman on cello, Denis Linnik and Marco Scilironi on piano and singer Silke Gäng. In another concert, the quartet will perform Arnold Schönberg's Ode to Napoleon Buonaparte together with Anton Gerzenberg on piano and narrator Ruben Drole.
Ilya Gringolts and Anton Gerzenberg meet again for the Swiss premiere of a work by Mark Kopytman; the programme Two Alone also includes a world premiere by Hed Bahack and Bartók's trio work Contrasts.
Messiaen's Quatuor pour la fin du temps is the focus of the programme Turning Point on 1 February, in which Ilya Gringolts performs with Anton Gerzenberg, Reto Bieri and Ema Grčman.
Mizmorim Chamber Music Festival