There is always a certain amount of uncertainty with regard to a birth. The birth of the Gstaad Festival Orchestra was truly dazzling – the best omen for the concert tour in autumn that will take the orchestra to some of Germany’s most prestigious concert halls. Anyone who was lucky enough to be in the audience in the Festival Tent in Gstaad on Friday evening is sure still to be under the magical spell: almost three hours of music, but above all an incredible sense of passion – the most beautiful gift that can come from a concert. The passion of Russian music as embodied by principal conductor Maxim Vengerov. The passion of an ensemble focused completely on its conductor and toward its audience, radiating an enthusiasm that was contagious – with special mention of the brass section that particularly “was under constant fire” and that was sensational in both the piano as well as in the fortissimo passages. The passion of a young Russian pianist who jumped in as a replacement for the ailing Fazil Say and provided a superlative, transcendental performance of Tchaikovsky’s First Piano Concerto: Nikolai Tokarev shall go far, that is certain. And finally the passion of Maxim Vengerov, filled with such great enthusiasm for this new adventure that he offered the audience and his musicians a touching present: Beethoven’s Romance with himself… on the violin!

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Maxim Vengerov, principal conductor

A project of great artistic and strategic significance

With the Gstaad Festival Orchestra the Menuhin Festival would like to create a vehicle for representing the modern character of the Menuhin Festival in the 21st century as well as its consequent artistic realization. Something new should emerge in the inspiring region of Saanenland and Gstaad, something of artistic value that is of importance for the music world.

Gstaad and the Festival acquire an ambassador with the Gstaad Festival Orchestra that willbe able to present this beautiful region of the Bernese Oberland throughout Europe as a
“creative music workshop”.