EMD Festival 2024

Easter 1623 saw the Auferstehungshistorie, or History of the Resurrection, by Heinrich Schütz (1585–1672) first performed in Dresden. The court conductor in Dresden and first German composer of world renown, Schütz created this musical masterwork at the age of only 38. The Ensemble Polyharmonique, Giulia Russo, Christian Zacharas (Robozee) and CentreFilms now retell the RESURRECTION, with uniquely beautiful singing, expressive dance and technical refinement. They give space to the incredible, the search for truth and certainty, and the touching biblical love story of Jesus and Mary Magdalen, developing current images from this 400-year-old music that are overwhelming and moving. Baroque music interpreted from our contemporary gaze, Early Music combined with an urban dance scene – sound, text and image and the combination of two cultures merge in one highly expressive music film which is quite unlike any that has come before. 

At Easter in 2023, this film tale of love, faith and the incomprehensible premiered in Dresden. Welcome to the 21st century, dear Heinrich Schütz! And welcome to a new, magical experience of music, dear viewers!

Ensemble Polyharmonique 

Alexander Schneider artistic direction 

Giulia Russo, Christian Zacharas aka Robozee dancers 

  

Johannes Gaubitz Evangelist 

Alexander Schneider, Felix Rumpf Jesus 

Joowon Chung, Magdalene Harer Mary Magdalene 

Joowon Chung, Magdalene Harer The three Marys 

Benjamin Glaubitz, Sören Richter Two angels 

Sören Richter Cleophas 

Benjamin Glaubitz Gesell 

Wolfram Lattke, Matthias Lutze, Cornelius Uhle High Priest 

Jonathan Mayenschein, Wolfram Lattke Young man in the tomb 

 

Johannes Gaubitz Evangelist 

Alexander Schneider, Christian Volkmann Jesus 

Joowon Chung, Magdalene Harer, Marie Luise Werneburg Mary Magdalene 

Marie Luise Werneburg The three Marys 

Benjamin Glaubitz, Sören Richter Two angels 

Sören Richter Cleophas 

Benjamin Glaubitz Gesell 

Felix Rumpf, Matthias Lutze, Stefan Drexlmeier High Priest 

Jonathan Mayenschein, Wolfram Lattke Young man in the tomb

August 2022 

Production Centre Film

Shooting place Zentralwerk Dresden

The Sofia Baroque Arts Festival realised the opera performance of Handel's Amadigi di Gaula. Partners were Sofia Opera and Ballet and the National Fund "Culture". This was the first in the history period instruments production at the stage of the Sofia Opera and the 2 performances, as well as one in adaptation for young audience have been very successful. The semi-staged performances included 3D mapping scenography, ballet.  

Sofia Baroque Arts Festival Orchestra 

Zefira Valova leader 

Lucia Giraudo, Malina Mantcheva, Elena Ganova, Sofi Stambolieva, Gergana Deliyska violin 

Evgenia Bauer viola 

Ludovico Minasi, Thomas Chigioni cello 

Gabriela Tzvetanova double bass 

Aviad Gershoni, Konstantin Kozhuharov oboe 

Sabina Yordanova bassoon 

Antonio Faillaci trumpet 

Yavor Genov, Roberto Caravella lute 

Arianna Radaelli harpsichord 

Masha Ilieva ballet school 

 

Rafał Tomkiewicz Amadigi 

Rumyana Kostova Oriana 

Carlotta Colombo Melissa 

Margherita Maria Dardanus 

 

Tatyana Andonova choreographer 

Alisa Dzhoneva, Aleksandra Videnova, Bilyana Lozanova, Daria Lovrich, Elena Borea Kossenko, Niya Popova, Riana Milotinova Enchanted ladies and gentlemen 

 

Julia Krasteva stage director 

ElektricMe 3D mapping 

 

Production Sofia Baroque Arts Festival 

Shooting place Sofia Opera and Ballet 

 

In 1536, just in time for the autumn fair, a child was born at Petersberg in Basel who in later years was to make a name for himself throughout Europe as a physician and polymath: Felix Platter. His research on anatomy, psychiatry and also his epidemiological reports on the time of the plague made him famous throughout Europe beyond his death in 1614. His valuable herbarium is stored in the Burgerbibliothek Bern. 

But Felix Platter was much more than just a physician. Already during his studies in Montpellier he received the nickname “l’Alemandt du lut”. His “verteuschten” German translations of French chansons and Italian madrigals from this same period remain special musical-philological treasures. 

The focus of this concert is the musical side of this Renaissance man, which is once again allowed to blossom with voice, lute, viola da gamba and recorder. 

Tessa Roos voice 

Ivo Haun voice and lute 

Rui Stähelin lute and voice 

Caroline Ritchie Renaissance viola da gamba 

Tabea Schwartz recorder, viola da gamba; direction 

 

Production ReRenaissance / Forum Frühe Musik 

Shooting place Historical Museum Basel

We know that it was the 24th birthday party for Prince Leopold of Anhalt-Köthen. And we also know that it was a particularly lavish birthday, with dancing, music and theatrical performances. And we know that Johann Sebastian Bach composed a serenade to celebrate the feast and that Hamburg's most famous theatre bass, Gottfried Riemschneider, was invited to sing. Of this composition we are left with the libretto but... not the music. Bach, however – like almost all composers – reused his best pages, adapting them to another text. So, we set out to find it! And here, after years of work, we present what was probably the Serenade performed on the evening of the 10th of December 1718 for Prince Leopold. A musicologist, a musician, a composer and... a lot of passion are the ingredients that finally allow us to relive that magical moment of music and splendour that amazed the guests of the Köthen court 325 years ago.

La Risonanza 

Fabio Bonizzoni harpsichord, conductor 

Andrea Mion, Elisabeth Passot oboes 

Giovanni Battista Graziadio bassoon  

Jorge Jimenez, Ulrike Slowik, Rossella Borsoni, Beatrice Scaldini, Joanna Dobrowolska, Davide Medas, Laura Cavazzuti violins 

Livia Baldi, Zeno Scattolin violas 

Caterina Dell’Agnello, Agnieszka Oszanca cellos 

Guisella Massa violone 

 

Federica Napoletani soprano 

Angela Hyun Jung Oh alto 

Karol Kusz tenor 

Valerio Zanolli bass 

 

Karl Böhmer Musicological consultant 

Jörn Boysen composer 

 

Production La Risonanza 

Shooting place Leonardo da Vinci National Science and Technology Museum

Bach's Musical Offering BWV 1079 continues to inspire musical artists today to reinterpret, recreate and recreate. Bach's unrivalled mastery of polyphony is evident in the canons and the two ricercares. In the Trio Sonata, it finally becomes part of the common musical language of the late Baroque. Bach undoubtedly marks the apogee of this genre in the history of music. The trio sonata forms the framework for this concert, with counterpoint works from the 20th and 21st centuries by Isang Yun and Wen-Chen Wei, as well as other works by Bach.

Dorothee Oberlinger recorder 

Manuel Granatiero transverse flute 

Yuki Serino violin 

William Coleman viola 

Vittorio Ghielmi viola da gamba 

Flavio Losco baroque violin 

Florian Birsak harpsichord 

 

Production Universität Mozarteum Salzburg 

Shooting place Stiftung Mozarteum

Bach's most important organ works - a milestone in music literature! In the second concert of the first evening of the ORA Early Music Festival, they are not played on the large organ of the Mozarteum Foundation, but in an arrangement performed by the Mozarteum University Wind Philharmonic Orchestra under the direction of Andreas Martin Hofmeir. Instead of pipes controlled by the console, all the classical wind instruments can be heard and the organ comes to life.

Bläserphilharmonie Mozarteum 

Wind Philharmonic Orchestra of the University Mozarteum 

Andreas Martin Hofmeir, Simone Fontanelli musical direction 

 

March 2024 

Production Universität Mozarteum Salzburg 

Shooting place Stiftung Mozarteum

This film forms part of The Mozartists’ ongoing MOZART 250 series, and contains three works for string quartet that date from 1772. 
MOZART 250 is the brainchild of The Mozartists’ conductor and artistic director Ian Page, and is conceived as a 27-year project that follows the chronological trajectory of the composer’s life and works in ‘real time’, running from the 250th anniversary of his childhood visit to London in 2014/15 to the 250th anniversary of his death in December 2041. In addition to anniversary performances of many of Mozart’s works, the series also seeks to deepen our understanding and appreciation of his music by contextualising it alongside the music of his contemporaries, and the series has already featured music by nearly fifty other composers, from Abel to Zimmermann. 
Reflecting both Mozart’s early compositional output and The Mozartists’ own identity, the first few years of MOZART 250 have focused predominantly on orchestral and vocal music, but in 2021 they responded to COVID restrictions (which for a while stipulated that no more than six musicians could perform together) by creating a series of films of chamber music by Mozart, Haydn and Johann Christian Bach. The featured works all dated from 1763-1771, and will be used to populate the MOZART 250 website that they are in the process of building. 

Matthew Truscott violin 1 

Julia Kuhn violin 2 

Max Mandel viola 

Sarah McMahon cello 

 

March 2023 

Production Classical Media

Shooting place St Giles Cripplegate

 

World première of an innovative choreography to Terpsichore, based on Michael Praetorius' (1571-1621) masterful suite of more than 300 instrumental dances. The muse of dance is the main character in the composer’s most famous and only surviving secular piece.  Nine muses, nine musicians, nine dance styles in a colourful sparkling cavalcade that spans time and continents, based on the Renaissance image of Ancient Greece. Bransle, galliard, volta and courant become everything from baroque, oriental and Indian dance to ballet, voguing and flamenco. The nine muses represent the movement of the body and the mind, what we cannot possess but till experience. 

The Nine Muses
Josefine Chiacchiero flamenco 

Nora Ekman classical ballet 

Matilda Larsson baroque dance 

Elisabeth Ludwig contemporary dance, pantomime 

Eva Fanadi belly dance fusion 

Kyrie Oda contemporary dance, butoh 

Linnéa Redblad Nordic folk dances 

Pauline Reibell Indian classical dances 

Mathias Terwander Stintzing voguing, waacking 

 
The Nine Musicians

Ann Allen shawm, bombard, recorder 

Anna Schall cornetto, recorder 

Silke Gwendolyn Schulze shawm, bombard, recorder, pipe & tabor 

Nils Carlsson renaissance trombone 

Dohyo Sol lute, baroque guitar 

Nora Roll viol 

Markus Eriksson viol 

Göran Månsson percussion 

Daniel Stighäll renaissance trombone, musical direction 

 

Patrik Sörling choreography and direction 

Peter Pontvik idea 

Josephine Chiacchiero production manager 

Robin Karlsson costume 

 

June 2023 

Production Stockholm Early Music Festival 

Shooting place The Musikaliska Concert House