Orchestre Place de l‘Europe

Benjamin Schäfer | Jan Westermann

Deze inhoud is helaas niet in het Nederlands beschikbaar.

‘Playing in this orchestra is not only musically fulfilling,’ says timpanist Jeff Schiltz, "but also humanly fulfilling. His colleague, violinist Pauline Marmaï, adds: ‘Benjamin shows us that it's not so much about perfection, but about the experience of creating something beautiful together.’

The meaning and purpose of the Orchestre Place de l'Europe could not have been better summarised. Since it was founded in 2022, the orchestra, consisting of 110 members and enthusiastically conducted by Benjamin Schäfer, otherwise timpanist with the Lëtzebuerger Philharmoniker, has already provided its audience with numerous moments full of emotion. Both in its performances and rehearsals, the orchestra remains true to its mission of sharing the joy of music and is also expanding its sphere of activity.

Benjamin Schäfer regularly swaps his mallets for the conductor's baton for this project. So far, he has travelled with the musicians through the sonic worlds of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart to Dmitri Shostakovich, with stopovers at Antonín Dvořák, Modest Mussorgsky and Claude Debussy.

He can also be heard regularly as a guest musician with the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, the NDR, WDR and SR radio orchestras, the Dresden Philharmonic Orchestra, the Gürzenich Orchestra Cologne, the Saarbrücken State Orchestra and the Lucerne Festival Orchestra. After leaving school, Schäfer studied orchestral music at the Trossingen University of Music with Franz Lang (SWR Symphony Orchestra) and Guido Rückel (Munich Philharmonic Orchestra). During his studies, he was active as a timpanist in renowned youth orchestras such as the German National Youth Orchestra, the Junge Deutsche Philharmonie, the European Union Youth Orchestra and the Gustav Mahler Youth Orchestra.

Benjamin Schäfer has increasingly focussed on conducting in recent years. He has gained valuable experience as conductor of the brass ensemble of the Luxembourg Philharmonic and by participating in competitions and masterclasses with renowned conductors such as Jukka-Pekka Saraste, Esa-Pekka Salonen, Klaus Mäkelä, Sakari Oramo and Jorma Panula. In 2021, he reached the semi-finals of the 8th International Jorma Panula Conducting Competition in Finland and won the Audience Award and the Special Talent Award at the 2nd International Conducting Competition in Bucharest. In 2022, Benjamin Schäfer made two important debuts as a conductor. Firstly, he took over the direction of the Orchestre de la Place de l'Europe. Secondly, he conducted the innovative project ‘The (Un) answered Question’ with the Saarland State Orchestra, which combined Charles Ives' composition with artificial intelligence and was awarded the Innovation 2022 prize by the German Orchestra Foundation.

Jan Westermann has been principal percussionist of the Konzerthausorchester Berlin since 2019. He studied with Franz Bach, Peter Sadlo and Arnold F. Riedhammer at the University of Music and Theatre in Munich. From 2015-2017 he was a fellow of the Kurt Sanderling Academy at the Konzerthaus Berlin. Since then, he has performed regularly with orchestras throughout Germany, including the Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester Berlin, the Gürzenich Orchestra Cologne, the orchestras of the Komische Oper and Deutsche Oper Berlin, the Hamburg Philharmonic State Orchestra, the orchestra of the Staatstheater am Gärtnerplatz, the SWR Symphony Orchestra and the Karajan Academy of the Berliner Philharmoniker.

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In addition to concerts throughout Europe, he has toured Egypt, China, Japan and Korea. As a solo and ensemble musician, he was part of Peter Sadlo's percussion ensemble Sadlo and Friends and performed in Daniel Hope's Hope@9PM series. With the Horenstein Ensemble, he played the world premiere of Christian Jost's Dichterliebe Recomposed, which was released by Deutsche Grammophon in 2019.

His personal interest lies in the appealing combination of percussion and electronics. With his live techno duo TEKNOIR, he combines acoustic and electronic sounds and develops site-specific programmes.

PROGRAM:

Aaron Copland - Fanfare for the Common Man (3 min)

George Gershwin - Cuban Overture (10 min)

Kay Westermann - Concerto for Marimba and Orchestra (15 min)

break

Charles Ives - Variations on ‘America’ (arr. William Schuman) (8min)

George Gershwin - An American in Paris (20 min)

CREDITS: 

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Orchestre Place d'Europe

Benjamin Schäfer - Conductor

Jan Westermann - Soloist Percussion

Duration: 60 min. with break

Location: Atrium