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Home , Audite, Evgeny Kissin, Heinz Holliger, Leif Ove Andsnes, Martha Argerich, Piotr Anderszewski

Media Release

Lucerne Festival – Preview of the 2017 Festival Year Easter Festival (1 to 9 April) in the churches of Lucerne and in the KKL Luzern: Teodor Currentzis is artist-in-residence; Swiss premiere of ’s -Strophen as part of the residency by the Bavarian Radio ensembles and Summer Festival (11 August to 10 September): Festival theme of “Identity” with the Monteverdi trilogy led by Sir ; conducts three concert programs as Music Director of the Orchestra; the teams up with Wolfgang Rihm, Matthias Pintscher, and ; and Jay Campbell are the two “artistes étoiles,” and Michel van der Aa is composer-in-residence Festival (18 to 26 November): , , , , and perform in Lucerne

Lucerne, 21 October 2016. The soprano Julia Lezhneva opens the 2017 Easter Festival in the Hof- kirche. Artist-in-residence Teodor Currentzis returns to Lucerne with his orchestra musicAeterna to perform Beethoven’s Sinfonia eroica and Mozart’s Violin No.4 in D major, with Patricia Kopatchinskaja as the soloist. Their second program will combine Pergolesi’s Stabat Mater with the Seven Last Words of Our Savior on the Cross by Haydn. The Bavarian Radio Choir and Symphony Orchestra will undertake their annual residency to Lucerne led by Mariss Jansons and perform the Swiss premiere of Wolfgang Rihm’s Requiem-Strophen. Bach’s St. John Passion with and the Balthasar Neumann Choir and Ensemble and Monteverdi’s Vespers (in cooperation with the Luzerner Theater) are the sacred music classics to be heard. And Lucerne Festival Young will introduce a musical journey around the world by . “Identity” is the theme of the 2017 Summer Festival that will be explored in the musical program- ming. Claudio Monteverdi, the founder of opera, will be John Eliot Gardiner’s focus with perfor- mances of L’Orfeo, Il ritorno di Ulisse, and L’incoronazione di Poppea – which will thematically touch on the origins of Western culture. Composer-in-residence Michel van der Aa thematizes issues of identity in such music theater works as his chamber opera Blank Out. , Béla Bartók, , and will be in the spotlight as composers whose musical identities were influenced by their surroundings: whether their cultural roots, their social en- vironment, or the political system in which they lived. Prokofiev's five piano will be per- formed in a single evening. And the Special Event Day on 27 August will also place issues of iden- tity center stage. and his ensemble will retrace slave routes from the 15th to the 19th centuries, Idomeneo will be performed as an inclusive opera project involving refugees, and world music featuring diverse ensembles will be offered throughout the day in front of the KKL Luzern. As “artiste étoile,” the violinist Patricia Kopatchinskaja will perform violin concertos by Michel van der Aa, Heinz Holliger, György Ligeti, and Béla Bartók, and she will also participate in a staged con- cert titled “Dies irae” with music by Biber, Crumb, Hersch, Lotti, Scelsi, and Ustvolskaya. The Ameri- can cellist Jay Campbell, an alumnus of the Academy, will also serve as “artiste étoile”: he will be the youngest musicians in the history of the Festival to have garnered this distinction. Among the programs in which Campbell can be heard, he will play the world premiere of Luca Francesconi’s new Cello Concerto and Michel van der Aa’s Up-close.

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The Lucerne Festival Orchestra will focus with its new Music Director, Riccardo Chailly, on three purely symphonic programs. Richard Strauss’s Thus Spoke Zarathustra, Death and Transfiguration, and Till Eulenspiegel will comprise the opening concert; Mendelssohn’s Midsummer Night’s Dream and Tchaikovsky’s Manfred Symphony are on their second program; and in the third Chailly will combine Beethoven’s Egmont Overture and Eighth Symphony with Stravinsky’s Le Sacre du Printemps.

At the Lucerne Festival Academy, the Composer Seminar led by Wolfgang Rihm, the Academy’s Artistic Director, continues in its second year. Principal Conductor Matthias Pintscher will prepare two programs: Cerha’s Spiegel (“Mirrors”) – in keeping with the Festival theme on our human iden- tity – and the world premieres of the Roche Young Commissions by Lisa Streich and Matthew Kaner, as well as the new Cello Concerto by the composer Luca Francesconi and featuring Jay Campbell. Heinz Holliger will conduct his own Violin Concerto, with Patricia Kopatchinskaja as the soloist.

The centerpiece of the Festival will be the daily performances by the world’s most acclaimed symphony orchestras. Sir will come to Lucerne for the last time in his role as Music Director of the . Riccardo Chailly will also perform in the KKL Luzern with his Filarmonica della Scala and . The City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra makes its first appearance with its new Music Director, Mirga Gražinytė-Tyla. Along with the Royal Orchestra Amsterdam and Daniele Gatti, other Festival guests will include the Orchestre de l’Opéra national de Paris with Philippe Jordan, the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra with , and Martha Argerich and the West-Eastern Divan Orchestra with . The will be conducted this year by and, in the conclu- ding concert, by Daniel Harding. Additionally in the lineup are the Mariinsky Orchestra with , the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra with Manfred Honeck and Anne-Sophie Mutter, the Chamber Orchestra of with , and the with François-Xavier Roth, all of whom will perform in the KKL Luzern.

Among this summer’s Debut artists are the SpiegelTrio, the harpist Elisa Netzer, the cellist Chiara Enderle, the violinist Valeriy Sokolov, the trombonist and first prize-winner of the ARD Competition Michael Buchanan, and the Schumann Quartet, as well as the winner of the “Prix Credit Suisse Jeunes Solistes” (to be announced). Lucerne Festival Young will feature a staged concert by the Sonus Brass Ensemble, Die Verblecherbande, (“The Gang of Naughty Brass Players”), and there will also be a children’s pillow concert with “artiste étoile” Patricia Kopatchinskaja as well as a new production by Young Performance.

The Piano Festival will again bring great keyboard artists to the KKL Luzern to perform, while inter- national jazz greats will ensure first-rate evenings in Lucerne’s bars until deep into the night. Leif Ove Andsnes, Evgeny Kissin, , and Daniil Trifonov will give recitals. Martha Argerich will be the soloist in Schumann’s in A minor with the Deutsche Kammer- philharmonie Bremen and Vladimir Jurowski. Piotr Anderszewski will perform in a second Piano Concert with the Festival Strings Lucerne, and an all-Mozart program will be given by the piano duo Güher and Süher Pekinel. Making their debuts are Christopher Park, Aglaia Graf, and Beatrice Rana.

Further information about ticket sales and about the summer subscription seres may be found in the new Festival magazine and online at www.lucernefestival.ch.

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The latest release in the Historic Performances series in collaboration with the label audite comes out on 4.11.2016: Swiss Festival Orchestra | Wolfgang Schneiderhan, violin | Irmgard Seefried, soprano (Martin) | (Mozart) | Ferdinand Leitner (Henze) | Bernard Haitink (Martin) Wolfgang Amadé Mozart: Violin Concerto in A major, K. 219 | : Violin Concerto No. 1 | : Magnificat (version of 1967/68) | recorded in Lucerne, 1952, 1964, & 1968

Easter Festival Main Sponsor Zurich Insurance Company Ltd Co-Sponsor Glencore

Summer Festival Main Sponsors Credit Suisse | Nestlé S.A. | Roche | Zurich Insurance Company Ltd Theme Sponsor Vontobel Concert Sponsors Bucherer AG | Clariant | Franke | KPMG AG Co-Sponsors Andermatt Swiss Alps AG | B. Braun Medical AG | La Mobilière | Schindler Elevator Ltd. | Swiss Life | Swiss Re Piano Festival Main Sponsor Bank Julius Baer & Co. Ltd.

Contacts for Press and Public Relations Nina Steinhart, Director | [email protected] | t +41 (0)41 226 44 43 Katharina Schillen | [email protected] | t +41 (0)41 226 44 59

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