When Claudio Abbado and Michael Haefliger founded the LUCERNE FESTIVAL ORCHESTRA, which has opened the summer season every year since 2003, they were, in a way, harking back to the birth of the LUCERNE FESTIVAL in 1938. At that time, Arturo Toscanini brought an elite group of musicians together as a unique ensemble to play the legendary “Concert de Gala.” With this model in mind, internationally renowned soloists converge once again in 2010, under the leadership of Claudio Abbado, to continue their Mahler cycle and to undertake their first opera with Beethoven’s Fidelio. Performing as principals are such musicians as violinist Kolja Blacher, violist Wolfram Christ, cellist Natalia Gutman, and double bassist Alois Posch. The entire Leipzig String Quartet as well as harpist Marie-Pierre Langlamet are likewise part of the ensemble; wind players include flutist Jacques Zoon, clarinetist Sabine Meyer and her woodwind ensemble, horn player Bruno Schneider, and trumpeter Reinhold Friedrich. The core of the orchestra is drawn from the approximately forty members of the Mahler Chamber Orchestra. In addition to the LUCERNE FESTIVAL ORCHESTRA’s two major orchestral programs, the musicians will appear in a number of chamber concerts. From the very beginning, the orchestra’s performances have caused a sensation in the music world success: Many have been broadcast on television and then released on DVD; in January 2009 their live recording of Mahler’s Third Symphony was singled out for the Cannes Classical Award. The LUCERNE FESTIVAL ORCHESTRA has made guest appearances in Rome and Tokyo; at Carnegie Hall in New York, the BBC Proms, and the Vienna Musikverein; and in Beijing. This active itinerary resumes in October 2010, when Claudio Abbado and his musicians will give concerts in Madrid and Paris.
The LUCERNE FESTIVAL ORCHESTRA has performed each year since making its LUCERNE FESTIVAL debut in summer 2003.
May 2010