During a press conference today it was announced that artistic director Ingo Metzmacher has extended his contract and will remain at the KunstFestSpiele Herrenhausen as artistic director until at least August 2023.
Ingo Metzmacher on his extension: “I would like to expressly thank Mayor Belit Onay for the trust placed in me and my team that I can continue to design the KunstFestSpiele Herrenhausen in the coming years. We are also very much looking forward to working with Konstanze Beckedorf, head of the cultural department, with whom I have had very good discussions over the past few months. We fully support the 2025 Capital of Culture application.
The KunstFestSpiele see themselves as a festival for the whole city and its residents. We want to continue working in the coming years to inspire an ever wider audience for these unique festivals. We have a lot of ideas on how to do this, especially when working with the many international artists who keep letting us know how much they appreciate the extraordinary atmosphere at the KunstFestSpiele.
This year we face major challenges with the corona pandemic. We are determined to send a positive signal for the future with the festival, which has been moved to autumn.”
Mayor Belit Onay: “Ingo Metzmacher knows that a festival needs highlights and he knows how to set them. In the past few years, he has always managed to bring great things to the stage as director of the KunstFestSpiele Herrenhausen and not only to carry the festival into the city, but also to establish it nationwide. This contract extension is a sign that we very much appreciate the cooperation with Ingo Metzmacher. We look forward to continuing this successful cooperation. "
Head of Culture Konstanze Beckedorf: “The artistic director of the KunstFestSpiele Herrenhausen is a matter close to the heart for the Hanover-born and cultural visionary Ingo Metzmacher. He emphasizes this again and again, and visitors to the unique festival have heard, seen and experienced this for years. We are very happy to have Ingo Metzmacher with his extraordinarily high artistic competence here in Hanover - also with a view to the ongoing application for the title, European Capital of Culture 2025. "
The conductor has been artistic director of the KunstFestSpiele Herrenhausen since September 2016. He had taken over the management from Elisabeth Schweeger, who founded the festival in Hanover.
Link to the article (in German): https://kunstfestspiele.de/#.//aktuelles/ingo-metzmacher-verlaengert-seinen-vertrag.html
Ingo Metzmacher will lead the Vienna Philharmonic for three concerts in Germany in January, including a performance on 23 January as part of the opening festival of the Elphilharmonie Hamburg, which will be streamed live from 8.00 pm CET on YouTube.
The programmes will include works by Anton Webern, Karl Amadeus Hartmann, Piotr Tchaikovsky and Dmitri Shostakovich, with soloists Gerhild Romberger and Joshua Bell.
For further information: wienerphilharmoniker.at
On 28 January Ingo Metzmacher will return to the podium in Hamburg for a concert performance of Schoenberg’s opera Moses and Aron with the NDR Elbphilharmonie Orchestra at the newly opened Elbphilharmonie building.
On the evening before, the conductor and international guests will discuss the history and biographical context of Schoenberg’s opera as part of a concert talk at the Elbphilharmonie Recital Hall.
For further information please visit the Elbphilharmonie website: elbphilharmonie.de.
The concert will be steamed live from 8.00 pm CET on NDR Kultur: ndr.de/ndrkultur.
On 14 December Ingo Metzmacher returns to DSO Berlin for a programme of contrasts: the orchestra’s former chief conductor will perform Igor Stravinsky’s clear-cut and light-footed ballet Apollon musagète next to the sublime and complex sound architectures of Anton Bruckner’s Romantische Symphonie.
Watch this video for rehearsal insights: youtube.com/wOqWTy6UOHI.
Ingo Metzmacher presents the first programme highlight of the 2017 edition of KunstFestSpiele Herrenhausen: On 21 May Volkswagen Nutzfahrzeuge’s transport vehicle factory will be turned into an extraordinary concert venue. Ingo Metzmacher will conduct Ensemble Modern Orchestra with soloists Jocelyn B. Smith and David Moss for a performance of Heiner Goebbels’ orchestra cycle Surrogate Cities.
In this video the conductor and artistic director of the festival talks about this special event at Volkswagen Nutzfahrzeuge Transporterwerk, the work and the upcoming festival: vimeo.com/192470061.
KunstFestSpiele Herrenhausen will take place from 5 to 21 May 2017. The full programme will be announced on 19 January.