Tomorrow’s Musicians Today
The Young Euro Classic, featuring the world’s best youth orchestras, is an open dialogue intercultural event that takes place in Berlin during August
August 18th, 2016Young Euro Classic is an international music festival in Berlin where the best youth symphony orchestras from across the world play classical pieces but also folk and popular songs, to promote symphonic music amongst the youth and to foster intercultural dialogue. It takes place from the 6th to the 23rd of August, with a special night on the 22nd dedicated to Mexican culture, as a part of the Germany-Mexico dual year.
Founded in 2000, the Young Euro Classic Festival in Berlin takes place in Gendarmemarkt Auditorium every summer. Although at first (and as its name may indicate) young people were exclusively invited from Europe, since 2005 the Festival has decisively widened its scope and invited musicians from other continents, including countries such as China, Oman, South Africa and Argentina. This makes this Festival one of the world’s main intercultural youth events, where orchestras from all over the world have a space to meet and exchange their ideas and cultures through music.
The festival consists of 19 concerts, involving a total of 1,000 to 1,500 young musicians who are part of different orchestras from Europe and beyond. The concerts are a highlight of Berlin’s summer in classical music and are attended by over 25,000 listeners each year.
The orchestras usually present a mix of classical repertoire and traditional or contemporary music from their respective countries. During the Young Euro Classic festival new works (composed precisely by the same young artists who are going to play them) are presented on a regular basis. Since 2000 there has been over 180 premieres in this Festival, making it a must-go place for lovers of new “classical” music.
Especially important in this year’s event, and to honor the Germany-Mexico dual year, a concert will take place on the 22nd of August of which the program is characterized by a strong Latin American flavor.
Particularly spectacular will be the Concerto for electric cello and orchestra, which the Mexican composer Enrico Chapela has explicitly written for the soloist of the Young Euro Classic concert, the German master cellist Johannes Moser.
Mexican classics from the 1930s will also be performed, the electrifying suite from the ballet symphony “Caballos de vapor” (horsepower) of one of Mexico’s most important composers, Carlos Chávez. In contrast, and to further the idea of intercultural dialogue between Germany and Mexico, there will be two masterpieces of German Classicism: the rousing overture to the tragedy “Coriolanus” and the third Leonore Overture, both by Ludwig van Beethoven.