Genesis

In July 2017, Alma Mahler Kammerorchester had its first residency in Villa Manin in Italy, which marked its musical birth – its genesis. Together, we performed four concerts in this beautiful venue, all of which were very enthusiastically received by the audience – our two orchestral concerts were sold out.

The first of the two major programmes we played was baroque – in collaboration with Carlo de Incontrera – dedicated to the life of Johann Winckelman and Maria Theresa of Austria. We were incredibly happy to have collaborated with the wonderful singer Bettina Ranch, who joined us for this concert, and also travelled with us for its second performance in the Teatro Verdi in Trieste.

The second programme, subtitled Genesis, involved two pieces by Richard Wagner and Gustav Mahler: Siegfried Idyll and the 1st symphony (in an arrangement by Klaus Simon) respectively. We are very grateful to Leo McFall, who conducted us during both of these projects.

Last, but not least, we performed two open-air chamber music concerts in the park of the Villa: a string quartet program with pieces by Mozart and Haydn, and a woodwind program with pieces by Janáček, Ligeti, Piazzolla, Shostakovich and Zemlinsky.

After an extremely successful beginning, we are very much looking forward to our next projects which include chamber music and reductions of orchestral repertoire.