Menuhin Festival Gstaad launches Gstaad Festival Orchestra

The Menuhin Festival Gstaad with Maxim Vengerov announced the launch of the Gstaad Festival Orchestra in London on the weekend. Beginning in 2010 the orchestra will perform – at the highest level of excellence – great symphonic works and programmes featuring new and diverse stylistic encounters; the orchestra is predestined to become the festival’s ambassador.

The new ensemble will consist of some 70 musicians from leading national and international orchestras (including the kammerorchesterbasel and the Zurich Opera Orchestra) supplemented by a dozen posts for select music students. The festival was able to procure Maxim Vengerov – one of the most fascinating contemporary musicians – as its principal conductor.

The orchestra comes together yearly for a festival programme (next summer including Modest Mussorgsky’s “Pictures at an Exhibition” and Tchaikovsky’s first piano concerto with soloist Fazil Say) followed by guest appearances at eminent events and concert halls throughout Europe. Performances at the Mecklenburg-Vorpommern Festival, at the Rheingau Music Festival as well as in Dresden, Bregenz and Munich already are planned for next summer and autumn.

Principal conductor Maxim Vengerov and the Gstaad Festival Orchestra have agreed upon a long-term collaboration (in two-year cycles). An additional second cycle will be guided by conductor Kristjan Järvi. The Estonian conductor known for his ardor and commitment to contemporary music will present a programme featuring new and diverse stylistic encounters in the 2011/2012 season; he thereby embodies one of the festival’s central concerns.

The artistic profile of the Gstaad Festival Orchestra will be marked and shaped by two extraordinary musicians: Maxim Vengerov and Kristjan Järvi.

The Menuhin Festival Gstaad and its Intendant Christoph Müller would like to create a vehicle with the Gstaad Festival Orchestra for representing the 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 will be of importance for the music world. Gstaad and the Festival thus will acquire an ambassador with the Gstaad Festival Orchestra that will present one of the most beautiful regions of Switzerland to all of Europe as a “creative music workshop”.