August 31, 2023
Hindemith Honorary Prize of the City of Hanau for Herbert Blomstedt
The City of Hanau is awarding the Hindemith Honorary Prize for the first time this year. This non-endowed award is a supplement to the Hindemith Prize, which the City of Hanau has awarded since 2000. The prize winners are proposed by the Hindemith Foundation Board and confirmed by the Magistrate. The Hindemith Foundation now also provided the impetus for the new award, as the City of Hanau has announced. The honorary prize is intended to honour outstanding artistic personalities at irregular intervals who have rendered outstanding services to the work of the Hanau-born musician and composer Paul Hindemith.
The 96-year-old conductor Herbert Blomstedt was chosen as the first prize winner. He was born in the United States in 1927 to Swedish parents and received his musical training at the Royal Conservatory in Stockholm, the University of Uppsala and the Juilliard School of Music in New York. He has been principal conductor of the Danish National Symphony Orchestra, the Dresden Staatskapelle, the NDR Symphony Orchestra and the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra, among others.
Since his student days, Herbert Blomstedt has been enthusiastic about Hindemith and has presented his works in numerous concerts and recordings. He said about Hindemith's music during an interview at the Hindemith Institute Frankfurt in 2008: "Hindemith can say important things even with the smallest ensembles and means. I especially appreciate this with him. His relationship to history, too. One senses in each moment that he reacts very conciously to Renaissance, baroque or classical music. The way he used old German folksongs or uses Bach two-part inventions as a model is always creative. [...] one feels that Hindemith is becoming more appreciated by the public. This is because Hindemith's music is very musical and therefore lively as well. [...] The prerequisites for a successful interpretation of Hindemith's music are both technical mastery and a lively performance. Hindemith's own attitude towards music-making should be a model for us interpreters."
The award will be presented in Bamberg on 25 November 2023.
August 23, 2023
Special Prize of the Hindemith Foundation
The Deutsche Musikwettbewerb des Deutschen Musikrats [German music competition held by the German Music Council] took place in Bonn from 10 to 17 August 2023. Again, the Fondation Hindemith offered a special prize in the amount of 3.000 euro for the most convincing interpretation of a work by Paul Hindemith. The prize was awarded this year to Jonas Haffner (piano) who played together with Katharina Licht (violin) Hindemith's Sonata in E flat op. 11 No. 1 (1918).
Jonas Emanuel Haffner received his first piano lessons in Stuttgart with Romuald Noll and studied with Konrad Elser and Roland Krüger. He then deepened his interest in chamber music in the class of Markus Becker. He received further musical inspiration from Elisabeth Leonskaja, Anatol Ugorski, Jan Philip Schulze, Eberhard Feltz and Thomas Brandis, among others.
He has won prizes at numerous national and international competitions, including Košice, Pörtschach and Nuremberg. He has received various scholarships, including from the Deutsche Stiftung Musikleben and the Kiwanis Club Lübeck-Hanse. In 2021 he received the prize of the Hanover Stock Exchange Club.
As a soloist, he has performed with the Kiel Philharmonic Orchestra, the Schwäbisch Gmünd Philharmonic Orchestra and the Academic Orchestra of the University of Stuttgart, among others.
25 July, 2023
Together with the Frankfurt University of Music and Performing Arts (HfMDK), the Hindemith Institute Frankfurt is organising the "Hindemith Days" in honour of the composer from 14 to 26 November 2023.
November 14, 7.30 pm
Frankfurt, HfMDK
Opening concert with HfMDK students
November 16, 11 am and 12.30 pm
Frankfurt, Hindemith Kabinett im Kuhhirtenturm
Tabea Zimmermann, Viola
November 16, 7 pm
Frankfurt, Hindemith Kabinett im Kuhhirtenturm
"Max Reger war der letzte Riese in der Musik, ich bin ohne ihn gar nicht zu denken"
Speech settings by Max Reger and Paul Hindemith
November 21, 7.30 pm
Frankfurt, Niederursel, Gustav-Adolf-Kirche
Nur-Ben-Shalom, clarinet - Aris-Quartett
November 22, 6.30 pm
Mainz, Schott Music
HfMDK Students
November 26, 11 pm
Hanau, Schloss Philippsruhe
Melinda Paulsen, Mezzosoprano - Andreas Frese, piano
February 21, 2023
Schleswig-Holstein Musik-Festival Hindemith Prize 2023
The recipient of the Hindemith Prize 2023 is Alex Paxton.
More informations ...
January 27, 2023
New Publication: Hindemith-Jahrbuch / Annales Hindemith 2022/LI
Soon after the beginning of his cooperation with the Schott publishing house, Hindemith presented the publishing directors Ludwig and Willy Strecker with a problem concerning his Drei Hymnen von Walt Whitman für Bariton und Klavier op. 14 which he composed and submitted for approval in 1919. The Streckers detected a new radical style in this new work by the young composer which altered his previously highly praised individual voice. On the other hand, this setting of poems by Whitman clearly demonstrated Hindemith’s great sensitivity in approaching multiple inherent textual levels. Mirjam Kehrberger provides a detailed and contextual investigation of these songs which were significant for the early development of Hindemith as a composer. Malte Waag and Hilco Elshout have devoted themselves to a topic which has already spawned numerous studies in Hindemith-related research: the nature of the composer’s encounter with political constellations during the Nazi era and its reflection in his compositional output. Malte Waag sheds light on the protracted discussions and confusion surrounding the performance of the opera Mathis der Maler while Hilco Elshout engages in a methodical approach based on the concept of "cultural memory” as formulated by Aleida and Jan Assmann. Alongside the Mathis-Symphonie, Elshout’s research is also focused on the Trumpet Sonata and the Flieder-Requiem. This year’s yearbook is rounded off by a conversation dating from 2004 between Stefan Fricke and Hans Otte, pianist and student of Hindemith at Yale University.
We offer our sincere thanks to the Strecker Foundation for their generous financial support for the publication.
Hindemith-Jahrbuch / Annales Hindemith 2022/LI
Herausgeber: Hindemith Institut Frankfurt im Auftrag der Fondation Hindemith, Blonay (CH)
Mainz: Schott 2022
ISBN-13: 978-3-7957-2797-0
ISSN: 0172-956X
24. Januar 2023
Frankfurter Kulturwochen
Führung zum Komponisten Paul Hindemith
Termine
26. Februar 2023, 14 Uhr
26. März 2023, 14 Uhr
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