The Palace of Arts remembers Gustav Mahler

2010. June 24.

Gustav Mahler’s 150th birth anniversary and 100th death anniversary shall be commemorated as part of a unique concert series on the 2nd of July in Budapest in the Palace of Arts.

The Schleswig-Holstein Festival Orchestra with top young musicians of the world gives concerts in those cities that had a significance in the great masters life (Budapest, Prague and Hamburg), conducted by Christoph Eschenbach, one of the most experienced interpreters of the composer’s music.

The 18-26 year-old members of the ensemble founded 24 years ago by Leonard Bernstein had a highly successful 23-concert tour in the US this spring. A new orchestra is set up for the new season. The programme of their Mahler tour is based on Mahler’s Symphony No. 1. and No. 5., but in Budapest they shall also play Erkel’s overture to the opera Hunyadi László and Mozart’s Symphony in C Major.

The orchestra shall travel to Prague from Budapest to give two concerts. On July 14th they will play Symphony No 5. and accompany Thomas Hampson the world-famous baritone who sings Mahler’s Rückert Songs in Hamburg.

Their concert in Hungary is another station in the co-operation of the Palace of Arts and KLASSZ Music Office after the Gala Concert of the Renaissance Year 2008 talent search contest in March 2009, hosted by the Béla Bartók National Concert Hall.

Rolf Beck, Intendant of the Schleswig-Holstein Music Festival, Orsolya Endrődi, Head of the Klassz Music Office and András Csonka, Deputy General Manager of the Palace of Arts gave a press conference about the programme. They said that in 2007 Hungary was the guest of honour at the Schleswig-Holstein Festival while the festival’s orchestra performed Haydn’s The Creation in Győr the same year.
Thanks to a fruitful co-operarion between KLASSZ Music Office and the festival since then many young Hungarian talents had the opportunity to play in the festival’s orchestra or sing in their choir.

On the 2nd of July this concert will symbolically conlcude the season in the Palace of Arts. The 2010/2011 season opens on the 9th of September also in Mahler’s spirit with a concert of the North German Radio Symphony Orchestra playing his Symphony No. 4 with conductor Michael Gielen as part of the Budapest Mahler Festival.

24.06.2010