Nordic - Concert of the HfMDK Symphony Orchestra

On May 4, 2024, the HfMDK Sym­pho­ny Or­ches­tra will per­form the con­cert pro­gram "Nor­dic" at 7.30 pm in the Gre­at Hall of the uni­ver­si­ty. Mi­cha­el San­der­ling, who took over as mu­si­cal di­rec­tor of the en­sem­ble in the fall of 2023, will be con­duc­ting. He has selec­ted three Scan­di­na­vi­an works for the evening at the HfMDK: Ed­vard Grie­g's "Morning Mood" and Jean Si­be­li­us' Sym­pho­ny No. 2 in D ma­jor will frame Carl Niel­sen's Cla­ri­net Con­cer­to with Por­tu­gue­se so­loist Da­nie­la Pin­ho. She is a mas­ter's stu­dent in the cla­ri­net class of Prof. Lau­ra Ruiz Fer­re­res and qua­li­fied for the solo part via an au­di­tion.

The "Morning Mood" co­mes from the last part of Grie­g's in­ci­den­tal mu­sic to Hen­rik Ib­sen­'s "Peer Gynt". The Nor­we­gi­an com­po­ser la­ter made the four-mi­nu­te pie­ce the ope­ning mo­ve­ment of his Peer Gynt Sui­te No. 1, which was to bring him and the de­li­ca­te me­lo­dy gli­ding along in wa­ves to world­wi­de fame.

The cla­ri­net con­cer­to by the Dane Carl Niel­sen is one of the most im­portant cla­ri­net com­po­si­ti­ons of the 20th cen­tu­ry. The or­ches­tra­ti­on in­clu­des only two bas­so­ons, two horns, per­cus­sion and strings in or­der to high­light the solo wood­wind in­stru­ment. The solo part is chal­len­ging, with fast fi­gu­res, lar­ge le­aps and no­tes that are com­pli­ca­ted to grasp. Bold in­ter­jec­tions from the sna­re drum can be heard time and again.

In his Sym­pho­ny No. 2, the Finn Si­be­li­us for­med a four-mo­ve­ment work las­ting 45 mi­nu­tes from a mo­ti­vic nu­cleus of three as­cen­ding no­tes, which con­tains ty­pi­cal cha­rac­te­ris­tics of his mu­sic, such as ab­rupt chan­ges of mood, pas­sa­ges burs­t­ing with pa­thos, but also mo­ments of Nor­dic brusqueness. Whe­ther the fi­na­le re­al­ly cap­tures the en­er­ge­tic Fin­nish stri­ving for in­de­pen­dence from Rus­sia can­not be de­fi­ni­tively pro­ven, but it is un­dis­pu­ted that the sounds speak of strength, con­fi­dence and hope.

The sym­pho­ny or­ches­tra of the Frank­furt Uni­ver­si­ty of Mu­sic and Per­forming Arts (HfMDK) is pri­ma­ri­ly made up of stu­dents from the Ba­che­lor's and Mas­ter's de­gree cour­ses in Ar­tis­tic Mu­sic Stu­dies (KAM) with an or­ches­tral in­stru­ment as their main sub­ject and co­mes tog­e­ther several times a se­mes­ter for mu­si­cal pro­jec­ts. The en­sem­ble per­forms in chan­ging line-ups to en­ab­le as many stu­dents as pos­si­ble to take part. Working in a lar­ge en­sem­ble helps them to pre­pa­re for a pro­fes­sio­nal fu­ture in a sym­pho­ny or ope­ra or­ches­tra.

Mi­cha­el San­der­ling has been Chief Con­duc­tor of the Lu­cer­ne Sym­pho­ny Or­ches­tra sin­ce the 2021/2022 sea­son, ha­ving pre­vious­ly held the po­si­ti­on of Chief Con­duc­tor of the Dres­den Phil­har­mo­nic Or­ches­tra from 2011 to 2019. Guest en­ga­ge­ments have ta­ken him to the Ber­lin Phil­har­mo­nic, WDR Sym­pho­ny Or­ches­tra, SWR Sym­pho­ny Or­ches­tra, Ton­hal­le Or­ches­tra Zu­rich, Con­cert­ge­bou­wor­kest Ams­ter­dam, Or­ches­t­re de Pa­ris, NHK Sym­pho­ny Or­ches­tra and the To­ron­to Sym­pho­ny Or­ches­tra, among others. He works par­ti­cu­lar­ly clo­se­ly with the Ge­wand­haus­or­ches­ter Leip­zig and the Kon­zert­haus­or­ches­ter Ber­lin. He be­gan his mu­si­cal ca­re­er as princi­pal cel­list of the Leip­zig Ge­wand­haus Or­ches­tra and then the Ber­lin Ra­dio Sym­pho­ny Or­ches­tra be­fo­re fo­cu­sing on con­duc­ting. As a pas­sio­na­te sup­por­ter of the young ge­nera­ti­on of mu­si­ci­ans, he has been tea­ching at the HfMDK Frank­furt sin­ce 1998 and re­gu­lar­ly works with re­now­ned Ger­man youth or­che­s­tras. He took over the mu­si­cal di­rec­tion of the HfMDK Sym­pho­ny Or­ches­tra in the win­ter se­mes­ter 2023/2024.

Cla­ri­net­tist Da­nie­la Pin­ho co­mes from Por­tu­gal and com­ple­ted her Ba­che­lor's de­gree at the Aca­de­mia Na­cio­nal Su­pe­ri­or de Or­ques­tra. She has ta­ken part in mas­ter­clas­ses with va­rious cla­ri­net­tists, in­clu­ding To­maz Močil­nik (hr-Sin­fo­nie­or­ches­ter), Ro­main Guyot (in­ter­na­tio­nal so­loist), An­draz Go­lob (Ber­li­ner Phil­har­mo­ni­ker) and Eric Hoeprich (his­to­ri­cal in­stru­ment). The win­ner of several com­pe­ti­ti­ons, she re­gu­lar­ly works with or­che­s­tras in her home coun­try, in­clu­ding the Or­ques­tra Fi­lar­mo­nia das Bei­ras, the Or­ques­tra Me­tro­po­li­ta­na de Lis­boa and the Or­ques­tra Aca­dé­mi­ca Fi­lar­mó­ni­ca Por­tu­gue­sa. Da­nie­la Pin­ho is cur­r­ent­ly stu­dy­ing for a Mas­ter's de­gree in Ar­tis­tic Edu­ca­ti­on in Mu­sic at the HfMDK in the class of Prof. Lau­ra Ruiz Fer­re­res.

The HfMDK is a cul­tu­ral part­ner of the ra­dio sta­ti­on hr2 Kul­tur.