After the :alpenarte can already look back on seven successful editions since its premiere in spring 2017, young and stylistically open-minded musicians are to be brought to Schwarzenberg again next fall from October 14 to 16, 2022, in order to inspire the audience in three concerts, as previously at the Kulturenquete of the Province of Vorarlberg. The past editions have shown that the concept of :alpenarte works well, with innovative ideas new audiences could be won and a regular audience could be built up. Likewise, the change in artistic direction and the new concept seems to have succeeded, as it was shown in the last edition in the fall of 2021, which was postponed several times due to Covid. The departure from the principle of the “artistic director in residence” and the associated core of 10 musicians per festival allows for an expanded artistic as well as stylistic diversity.
In line with this new concept, the focus of the concerts is also widely spread. The Baroque ensemble “Apollo’s Cabinet” from London, which was founded in 2018 by Vorarlberg recorder player Teresa Wrann, will kick things off. Karoline Wocher from Feldkirch is also part of the ensemble as a baroque violinist. “Apollo’s Cabinet” tells the story of Charles Burney, the “baroque travel blogger,” who collected every imaginable piece, theme, and melody throughout Europe on his travels in 1770-1772 and wrote down the experiences in his journals. This musical journey can be experienced by supplementing the playing on fascinating baroque instruments with moderations and short readings from the translated diaries. The program will be complemented with baroque songs performed by Vorarlberg mezzo-soprano Isabel Pfefferkorn. To show how easily accessible the otherwise often rather conservative connotation of Baroque can be, the concert was simply titled “: Baroque For Everyone”.
The baroque journey through time is followed by a journey through the evergreens of music history with the concert “: Evergreens For You”. It leads from Astor Piazzolla to Harold Arlen, back to Gioachino Rossini, Pablo de Sarasate and Fritz Kreisler, on to Joseph Kosma, and many more. Of the seven young, internationally successful musicians around the artistic director Dražen Domjanić, three come from Ukraine and show how wonderfully easy it is to forget borders and build bridges in the world of music with the help of music. The Vorarlberg influence is also clearly noticeable in this concert, with music performed not only by Isabel Pfefferkorn but also by Swiss singer Nadia Maria, who attended the Feldkirch Music High School and came 2nd in the casting show “Die grössten Schweizer Talente” in 2016. Also taking part is Spanish cellist Mar Gimferrer, who is currently studying at the Vorarlberg State Conservatory.
The final concert takes us back to classical music, albeit with two very different parts. Once again, Isabel Pfefferkorn begins with songs by André Previn and Richard Strauss, but in a version for voice, violoncello and piano. After the intermission, the brilliant finale follows with the Double Concerto for Violin, Piano and String Orchestra by Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy. The composer, who was still very young at the time, already knew how to build stylistic bridges; in this work, for example, he made his enthusiasm for the sounds of Johann Sebastian Bach and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart clearly audible. The violinist Leonhard Baumgartner was born in 2007 and is thus about the same age as Mendelssohn himself was at that time. He is considered one of the most promising young violinists in Austria. Vladimir Acimovic, a native of Serbia, is only slightly older and can already look back on many international successes on the piano. The accompaniment will be provided by the Ensemble Esperanza, founded at the International Music Academy in Liechtenstein, which had already put itself in the limelight several times in the past as an audience favorite.