Gürzenich-Orchester Köln, Emmanuel Tjeknavorian & Bertrand Chamayou

Welcome to the 20th Klarafestival!

Under the title We Are Now, this special anniversary edition pays tribute to the here and now. No one embraces the magic of the moment more fearlessly than festival artist Patricia Kopatchinskaja. Wherever and whatever she plays, this Moldovan violinist and composer sets the stage alight. For her, every concert is a new beginning, a full moment in which anything can happen. Klarafestival 2025 paints a multifaceted portrait of Patricia Kopatchinskaja as a violinist, composer and inspiring presence.

In honour of our 20th anniversary, we are launching a new tradition: for one day, Mont des Arts will be transformed into the Muziekberg /Mont des Musiques. Alongside concerts and performances at various venues, a new ensemble will also see the light. Sound of Brussels Orchestra goes in search of the exceptional sound of our capital.

We live in challenging times, and some of the festival projects reflect on this. At the same time, they demonstrate how much hope can lurk between the notes of a Stabat Mater or a Dies Irae. How music can move and inspire us. For Patricia Kopatchinskaja, music is no abstract matter: ‘Music is there for us to do something with it. Even when it has no concrete message or function, it appeals to us. It wants to be heard. I don't believe in absolute music. Not really.'

Let the celebration begin!

Joost Fonteyne, intendant
Jan Raes, chairman
Chantal Pattyn, network manager

More than a déjà vu moment

March 7, 1875. Maurice Ravel is born in the French Basque fishing village of Ciboure. His dark eyes glitter with a distinct curiosity that will never fade. His birthplace lies close to the border with Spain, overlooking a picturesque bay and the Atlantic Ocean beyond, which Ravel crosses in 1927 for his first American tour. The 52 year old Ravel is one of France’s greatest composers. His Boléro will triumph in Paris just a year later, but the major part of his surviving oeuvre is already written. During his four months in Canada and the United States, Ravel is immersed in the New World’s roaring twenties. The soundtrack to the ‘20s was of course jazz. Ravel meets ‘King of Jazz’ Paul Whiteman, and accompanies George Gershwin to Harlem’s jazz clubs. He is fascinated by New York’s skyscrapers, admires motor industry technology and explores the country’s natural beauty extensively. He also finds time to see old acquaintances such as Béla Bartók and Edgard Varèse. The affection is mutual: standing ovations and positive reviews make the trip a success story. Ravel conducts the leading symphony orchestras of Boston, Chicago and New York, and performs at the keyboard.

From America to the clavier 

It would be difficult to imagine the Piano Concerto in G major (1929-30) if not for that epic journey. Determined to return to the States, with himself as the concerto soloist, Ravel gets down to work. His ambition has never been greater. Even Java is on the early concert schedule. Because of his deteriorating health and increased workload, in 1931 he drops the idea of playing himself, and the tour has meanwhile been ‘limited’ to Europe by the stock market crash of 1929.

His choice of a piano concerto seems obvious to us, but at the time was anything but a logical move. The French concerto had long since lost popularity; Saint-Saëns, for example, wrote his last in 1896. What really was hot in Paris, however, was jazz. The first and third movements of Ravel’s concerto are full of blue notes, swinging off-beats, colourfully altered chords and jazzy solos for trumpet and clarinet – clear references to American music styles. The slow second movement abandons the theatricality and mischievous mood of the first movement, with an extended, nostalgic piano solo. The theme gently passes to the woodwinds, who in turn pass it solemnly to the strings and piano. With a drumroll and brief statement from the winds, the third movement carries us along again at full speed. Less recognisable to most ears are the Basque themes that Ravel incorporates in the outer sections, leftovers from his unfinished 1906 piano concerto, Zazpiak Bat. In this concerto, the second crossing from Basque fishing village to American east coast was made after all, and in only twenty minutes.

Russia in Paris

That not only American jazz, but also Russian music, took Parisian venues by storm at the beginning of the twentieth century, is verified by the Ballets Russes under Sergei Diaghilev and his commissions for Igor Stravinsky (The Firebird, Petrouchka and The Rite of Spring). Ravel’s orchestration of Modest Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition (1874) indicates the popularity of the Russian Grandmasters. Ten movements express in sound ten artworks by Viktor Hartmann that Mussorgsky had seen in Saint Petersburg, although it is not certain which works Mussorgsky had in mind: ‘Samuel Goldenberg and Schmyuÿle’ combines two portraits (A rich Jew and A poor Jew). We wander from one picture to the next to the mellifluous tones of the ‘Promenade’ theme. ‘Promenade’ is more than a moment of déjà vu. Through the changing orchestration and the character of the supporting sections, it is either a gentle prelude to the ‘Ballet of the Unhatched Chicks’ or a contrasting middle section between ‘Il Vecchio Castello’ (‘The Old Castle’) and ‘Tuileries’.

The theme is also incorporated in ‘Cum mortuis in lingua mortua’ and ‘The Great Gate of Kiev’, where it turns into a hymn of patriotic fervour. Ravel orchestrated the suite at the request of conductor Serge Koussevitzky, thus writing one of his few orchestrations of another composer’s work. Other examples are his partial re-orchestration of Rimsky-Korsakov’s Antar and orchestrations of Schumann’s Carnaval, Chabrier’s Menuet Pompeux, and Debussy’s Sarabande and Danse. The premiere of Ravel’s Pictures at an Exhibition at the Paris Opera in 1922 was well-received. One reviewer – and old acquaintance of Ravel’s – Émile Vuillermoz, wrote three years later of the orchestration: ‘One does not have the impression of being in the presence of a second-hand work. (…) In Pictures at an Exhibition, Ravel has done the work of both creator and arranger.’

Greatest hits from Armenia

With Soviet-Armenian composer Aram Khachaturian’s Gayane Suite (1939-42), the Gürzenich Orchestra Cologne brings a perfect Russian-French balance to this programme. The orchestral suite gathers together the finest music from the ballet of the same name – a collection of pure evergreens and widely used film music. Stanley Kubrick used ‘Gayane’s Adagio’ in 2001: A Space Odyssey. The poor cotton picker Gayane here bemoans her lazy drunkard of a husband. The string orchestra offers comfort, and better days are in sight. Soon after, the incendiary ‘Sabre Dance’ celebrates Gayane’s marriage to her new love, the commander Kazakov. His colleagues salute the newlyweds with their ceremonial sabres. Dance forms from Armenia, Georgia and Ukraine – with their typically stylised use of hands and arms – dominated the ballet. Who knows what the Ballets Russes and Ravel might have done with this scenario if Gayane had seen the light of day twenty years earlier? We will never know, but tonight we can certainly allow our imaginations free rein.

Guillaume De Grieve 

Translation: Patrick Goddard 

Gürzenich-Orchester Köln

The Gürzenich-Orchester Köln is among Germany’s most distinguished orchestras on the concert and opera stages. Founded in 1827, over the course of its rich history it has premiered work by composers such as Brahms, Richard Strauss and Mahler. Today, it plays approximately 50 concerts annually at the Kölner Philharmonie, alongside some 160 opera performances as the resident orchestra of Oper Köln. As Cologne’s city orchestra, it actively engages with the community through projects involving young people, seniors, and amateur musicians. From 2015 to 2024, François-Xavier Roth was the orchestra's chief conductor and music director for the city of Cologne; from the 2025-2026 season, Andrés Orozco-Estrada is set to take over these roles.

Emmanuel Tjeknavorian

The Austrian conductor Emmanuel Tjeknavorian is known as a versatile artistic personality. He began his career as a successful violinist and has played on the most renowned concert stages around the world. In 2015, he won second place at the International Jean Sibelius Violin Competition. As a conductor, he has led orchestras such as the Filarmonica della Scala, the hr-Sinfonieorchester, the Wiener Symphoniker, the Luzerner Sinfonieorchester and the Orchestre national d’Île de France. Since 2024, he has been music director of the Orchestra Sinfonica di Milano. Tjeknavorian has released several albums as a violinist and conductor and won an OPUS Klassik Award as young artist of the year in 2018.

Bertrand Chamayou

The French pianist Bertrand Chamayou studied at the Conservatoire de Paris with Jean-François Heisser. He regularly performs at venues such as the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées, Lincoln Center and Wigmore Hall, and has also appeared at festivals such as the Salzburg Festival, Edinburgh International Festival and Beethovenfest Bonn. As a soloist, he has worked with orchestras such as the Wiener Philharmoniker, NHK Symphony Orchestra, Cleveland Orchestra and New York Philharmonic. He has won an ECHO Klassik (2016) and a Gramophone Recording of the Year Award (2019) for his numerous CD recordings. He has also received the Victoire de la Musique for instrumental soloist of the year three times.

GÜRZENICH-ORCHESTER KÖLN

1. Violin
Natalie Chee
Arata Yumi
Elisabeth Polyzoides
Petra Hiemeyer
Anna Kipriyanova
Daniel Dangendorf
Nikolai Amann
Valentin Ungureanu
Evgenia Sverdlova
Marie-Noëlle Richard
Esther Hermann
Alicia Choi

2. Violin
Sergey Khvorostukhin
Marie Šparovec
Miyeon Lee
Martin Richter
Sigrid Hegers-Schwamm
Susanne Lang
Nathalie Streichardt
Joanna Becker
Anna van der Merwe
Ayane Okabe
Marina Hermida Rodríguez
Ernst Jan Vos

Viola
Öykü Canpolat
Mischa Pfeiffer
Bruno Toebrock
Annegret Klingel
Antje Kaufmann
Ina Bichescu
Rudi Winkler
Gerhard Dierig
Sarah Aeschbach
Felix Weischedel

Violoncello
Ulrich Witteler*
Jee-Hye Bae
Angela Chang
Franziska Leube
Daniel Raabe
Sylvia Borg-Bujanowski
Julian Bachmann
Maialen Eguiazabal Arruabarrena

Double bass
Christian Geldsetzer
Ertuğ Torun
Jason Witjas-Evans
Jon Mikel Martínez Valgañón
Daniel López Giménez
Pavel Hudec

Flute
Alja Velkaverh-Roskams

Rossana De Jesús Valente
Priska Rauh

Oboe
Thomas Hecker*
Ikuko Homma
Christopher Vettraino

Clarinet
Felix Löffler*
Andreas Oberaigner
Thomas Adamsky

Bassoon
Thomas Jedamzik
Victor König
Diane Mugot

Horn
Achille Fait
David Neuhoff
Andreas Jakobs
Jens Kreuter

Trumpet
Simon de Klein
Pierre Evano
Benedikt Neumann

Trombone
Aaron Außenhofer-Stilz
Carsten Luz
Jan Böhme

Tuba
Karl-Heinz Glöckner

Timpani

Robert Schäfer

Percussion
Alexander Schubert
Uwe Mattes
Christoph Baumgartner
Lukas Schrod
Christoph Lindner*

Harp
Antonia Schreiber
Saskia Kwast

Klavier/Celesta
Paulo Álvares*

Alto saxophone
Koryun Asatryan*

*Guests of the Gürzenich Orchestra

**Orchestra Academy of the Gürzenich Orchestra