65th Hitzacker Summer Music Festival

Dear Friends of the Hitzacker Summer Music Festival,

The word “laboratory” makes most people think of DNA research, vaccines or the good old Bunsen burner. And legions of scientists are looking for what makes life on earth possible. But they are not alone. Musicians have always been interested in what holds our world together. In their laboratories, melodies are dissected into phrases, tonal combinations buzz and whirr, dissonances smolder. This is especially true of the composers. In their think-tanks, they experiment and sample, they explore what’s new. And they always have.

The 65^th Hitzacker Summer Music Festival – entitled “Off to the Lab!” – will be looking at inquisitive musicians and inventors throughout the centuries. We’ll introduce the “Gallery of Visionaries”, musicians who were ahead of their time: Thomaner cantor and fugue experimentalist Johann Sebastian Bach; the Romantic Franz Schubert, who created a whole new musical era; Ludwig von Beethoven, the pinnacle of music’s particle accelerators. We’ll introduce you to the caprice and the phantasy as innovative genres, and you’re invited to the walk-in sound lab that our composer in residence, Matthias Kaul, will be working in every day in the garden right in front of the concert hall.

But our program goes beyond the purely descriptive. The festival itself will turn into a laboratory, inviting you to get close to new musical experiences. You’re not alone on this journey, for such renowned artists as the violionist Carolin Widmann or the Swedish Grammy Award winner Rigmor Gustafsson will be joining you in a search for what makes music eternally new.

I look forward to joining you for an inspiring festival!