Gregor Mayrhofer (34) will conduct the “Musica Aeterna” ensemble in Moscow on Saturday.
The program also includes a work of their own - the insect concert.
Waldram / Moscow
- The Zaryadye Concert Hall, located very close to the Kremlin, is something like the Gasteig of Moscow.
The art-loving residents of the Russian capital make a pilgrimage there to listen to music.
The new season will start next Saturday, by a conductor who comes from the district.
Gregor Mayrhofer, who comes from the well-known Waldram family of musicians - father Franz once directed the Wastl Fanderl School for Bavarian Music in Munich - conducts the international ensemble Musica Aeterna.
“I'm super excited,” he says in an interview with our newspaper.
So far he has only been to Russia once, in St. Petersburg, for a conducting master class.
Now he's back.
Actually, the director of the SWR Symphony Orchestra, Teodor Currentzis, should take over this part.
Currentzis, one of the greats of his trade, not only founded the ensemble, but also managed it on a world-class level.
But he left Moscow conducting to the aspiring Waldramer - a vote of confidence.
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The two artists know each other well.
Mayrhofer, a graduate of the famous Juillard School in New York, has assisted Currentzis on two SWR concert tours, one with Gustav Mahler's 9th Symphony.
“I've never experienced the piece more intensely,” he recalls.
In general, he appreciates the Russian-Greek conductor's “deep search to make music meaningful, to celebrate it almost like a religious ritual, to dare to do something new”.
The Waldramer says quite simply about Musica Aeterna (in German: Eternal Music): "An ingenious exceptional ensemble."
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In addition to Benjamin Britten's “Four Sea Interludes” and Dvorak's famous 9th Symphony (“From the New World”), the Zaryadye Concert Hall's program also includes a work by the 34-year-old himself: the insect concert. He had composed and premiered the ten-minute piece a few years ago in Berlin as Sir Simon Rattle's assistant, in order to draw attention to the worldwide death of insects. The original, yes unique thing about it: The animal sounds - such as the chirping of a cricket - were part of it, they were even the essence of the piece and were recorded on tape. In Moscow it will be different, the insect sounds are imitated by classical instruments. Even as an orchestral version, it will be an unusual listening experience for many Muscovites. We can look forward to the reactions.
The evening in Moscow will therefore mean a three-fold debut for Gregor Mayrhofer: as a conductor with Musica Aeterna, as an artist in Russia, and the insect concert will celebrate its Russian premiere. We are currently rehearsing intensively. “For me, a dream has come true,” says the Waldramer.