Dresden Music Festival Announces 2021 Program

The Dresden Music Festival announced its 2021 season with optimism today. Jan Vogler, Director of the Dresden Music Festival, has designated the 44th edition of the Festival, which will take place from May 14 to June 12, 2021, with the theme "DIALOGUES." After the Covid-19-induced cultural hiatus, he intends to reopen the musical dialogue with a total of 64 concerts at 25 venues.

Jan Vogler presented the following message today in Dresden, "Planning in times of Covid-19 is a matter of attitude. As a significant classical music festival, the Dresden Music Festival holds great cultural and touristic responsibility. Together with our partners, we have put together an excellent program for 2021 - while taking the current hygiene regulations into account. Our Festival team is highly flexible, and we will do everything we can to stimulate the cultural world and inspire personal dialogues through music."

In 2021, the Dresden Music Festival program's focuses more than ever on genre diversity and internationalism. The Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra under Jaap van Zweden will mark the first time an Asian orchestra will open the Festival. Rock icon Sting will close the Festival on June 12, 2021. The Dresden Music Festival's annual commission comes from the pen of Swiss composer William Blank - the triple concerto Alisma written to mark Beethoven's 250th anniversary and originally intended to premiere during the 2020 Dresden Music Festival. It will have its belated world premiere in 2021 with the Hamburg Philharmonic State Orchestra under the baton Kent Nagano and with soloists Mira Wang (violin), Jan Vogler (cello), and Daniel Ottensamer (clarinet).

At the 44th Dresden Music Festival, the breadth and scope of artists presented range from world-renowned orchestras like the Vienna Philharmonic conducted by Daniel Harding, the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra under Fabio Luisi, or the London Symphony Orchestra led by Sir Simon Rattle to the folk, jazz, rock, and world music scenes. Senegalese world musician Pape Diouf celebrates his German debut at the Junge Garde, and American songwriter Aoife O'Donovan inaugurates the new festival format Music Lounge at the Löwensaal. In addition to jazz stars such as Till Brönner, Tom Schilling, and chanson singer Ute Lemper, the audience can look forward to celebrated soloists of the classical music world like pianist Emanuel Ax, trumpet player Sergei Nakariakov, singer Regula Mühlemann, violinist Gil Shaham, cellist Steven Isserlis, and pianist Rudolf Buchbinder. Daniele Gatti, who will reside in Dresden as Artist in Residence, will conduct the Gustav Mahler Youth Orchestra with Shostakovich's 7th Symphony, and in a Schumann Symphony Cycle with the Dresden Festival Orchestra. The Festival's new music focus will be on American composers with Scottish percussionist Colin Currie and the Staatskapelle Weimar under Frank Strobel will give the German premiere of Danny Elfman's Concerto for Percussion and Orchestra. The Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra, under the baton of Eric Jacobsen, performs Harmonielehre by John Adams..

Barbara Klepsch, Saxony's State Minister for Culture and Tourism said, "The Dresden Music Festival has a world-class reputation. This was demonstrated most recently by the great resonance the online substitute program Music Never Sleeps DMF, necessitated by the coronavirus pandemic, presented in May 2020; it was watched by 220,000 viewers. The Dresden Music Festival contributes essentially to the high reputation of Saxony as a 'land of culture,' and it is an important tourism factor. Apart from many world stars, however, it also embraces regional cultural protagonists, making an important contribution to cultural education that is appealing and accessible to everyone,"

"The Dresden Music Festival actively rises to the challenge which the coronavirus pandemic has posed for the entire cultural sector - for this I am very grateful to Jan Vogler and his team. Now of all times, it is important to find creative forms for making high-carat, resonant art in Dresden an experience within everyone's reach," said Dirk Hilbert, Mayor oft he State Capital City of Dresden. "The Dresden Music Festival has a fixed place in the city's budget plans for the coming years, as we are convinced that this festival is a great asset to Dresden, attracting guests from all over the world - even if next year this may be the case virtually rather than personally."

"We are particularly pleased to support the Dresden Music Festival as a premium partner. We are confident it will not only prove the need for musical and artistic dialogues but also reveal their power to give strength and confidence. They gift both the world-famous artists as well as the passionate and music-loving audience something that gives life the optimism it deserves," said Andreas Rieger, spokesperson of the Ostsächsische Sparkasse Dresden.

The Dresden Music Festival is an institution of the State Capital of Dresden co-financed by tax funding on the basis of the budget passed by the members of the Parliament of Saxony.

Ticket sales begin on November 2, 2020 with seating limits according to the hygiene concept.

For the complete 2021 program and more information, please visit www.musikfestspiele.com.

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