The Kissinger Sommer is a classical music festival held every year in the summer in the city of Bad Kissingen in Bavaria, Southern Germany.
History
The festival was founded in 1986. At the beginning the focus of the festival was on the improvement of the cultural relations between eastern and western Europe.
Every year an east-european country was partner of the festival, beginning with Hungary in 1986. Poland, Czechoslovakia and the Soviet Union followed. So the festival became a place where one could see artists from east and west, especially of the partner-countries and of East-Germany.
[authors, various (1989) "Travel and Exchange"
]
/ref> Among the artists of the first years were Dmitry Sitkovetsky, Boris Pergamenschikow and Svjatoslav Richter. After the fall of the iron curtain the festival turned to a world-wide view with partner-countries in whole Europe, North America and China.
Director of the "Kissinger Sommer" from 1986 until 2016 was Kari Kahl-Wolfsjäger.[ Alexander Steinbeis wird Intendant des Kissinger Sommers , Musik heute, 10 March 2021]
In 2020 the festival was cancelled because of the COVID-19 pandemic.[ Kissinger Sommer 2020: Jetzt ist das ganze Festival abgesagt, Main Post, 20 May 2020]
Contemporary music
From the beginning the festival is also a place for contemporary composers like Alfred Schnittke, Sofia Gubaidulina, Edison Denisov, Aribert Reimann or Wolfgang Rihm.[Jesper Klein: Fräulein Else sucht nach Musik, Frankfurter Allgemeine, 4 July 2018, p. 11] However, there are also world premieres outside the Liederwerkstatt, such as the Concerto No. 1 for violin and orchestra by Gediminas Gelgotas in 2018
Artists in residence
Artists-in-residence have been in the last years:
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2014 Ning Feng and Igor Levit
[ Das klingende Treiben beginnt, Main Post, 12 June 2014]
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2015 Igor Levit
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2016 Daniil Trifonov
[ Kissinger Sommer feiert 30-jähriges Jubiläum mit Staraufgebot , Deutsche Welle (dw.com), 24 June 2016]
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2017 Patricia Kopatchinskaja and Vesselina Kasarova
[ »Palastrevolution« beim Kissinger Sommer , Main Post, 3 November 2016]
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2018 Sol Gabetta
[ Sol Gabetta wird Artist in Residence beim Kissinger Sommer , Main Post, 3 November 2017]
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2019 Julia Lezhneva
[ Julia Lezhneva, die Sopranistin im Wunderland , Main Post, 18. Juni 2019]
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2020 Jean-Yves Thibaudet
Orchestra in residence
Luitpold Prize
Every year since 1999 the Luitpoldpreis (Luitpold Prize) is awarded to a young interpreter of the festival. The prize is named after Luitpold, Prince Regent of Bavaria, who let build the great Bad Kissingen concert hall Regentenbau, where many of the concerts of the festival take place. The winners are:
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1999 – Nikolaj Znaider, violin
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2000 – Alisa Weilerstein, cello
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2001 – Jochen Kupfer, baritone
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2002 – , soprano
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2003 – Baiba Skride, violin
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2004 – Jan Kobow, tenor
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2005 – Mojca Erdmann, soprano
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2006 – Peter Ovtcharov, piano
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2007 – Tine Thing Helseth, trumpet
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2008 – David Lomeli, tenor
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2009 – Igor Levit, piano
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2010 – Kejia Xiong, tenor
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2011 – Anna Lucia Richter, soprano
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2012 – Dmitry Korchak, tenor
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2013 – Julia Novikova, soprano
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2013 – Konstantin Shamray, piano
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2014 – Kian Soltani, cello
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2015 – Sung Min Song, tenor
[Thomas Ahnert: Beliebte Regularien; Saale-Zeitung, 20 July 2015, Seite 6]
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2016 – Andrei Ioniță, cello
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2017 – Julian Trevelyan, piano
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2018 – , soprano
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2019 – , tenor
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2020 – not awarded (festival cancelled)
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2021 – Sarah Aristidou, soprano
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2022 – Lucas & Arthur Jussen, piano
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2023 – María Dueñas, violin
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2024 – Timothy Ridout, viola
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2025 – , piano
[ Ehrenvolle Auszeichnung und starke Förderung beim Festival, Saale-Zeitung, 22 July 2025]
Kissinger Klavierolymp
The festival is connected to the Kissinger Klavierolymp ( Kissinger Piano Olympics), a competition of young pianists which takes place in autumn in Bad Kissingen since 2003. The prize for the winners is a performance at the Kissinger Sommer. Among them are Martin Helmchen, Nikolai Tokarev, Kirill Gerstein, Igor Levit, Alice Sara Ott and Kit Armstrong.[ Juan Pérez Floristán gewinnt Kissinger KlavierOlymp , Main-Post 9 October 2018]
Recipients
|
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| Mihaela Ursuleasa |
| Andrei Banciu |
Joseph Moog
Miroslav Kultyshev |
| Mona Asuka Ott |
| Zhang Hai'ou |
| Claire Huangci |
| Kiryl Keduk |
| Alexei Grigorjew |
| Pawel Kolesnikow |
| Magdalena Müllerperth |
| Chi Ho Han |
| Julian Jia |
| Jorge González |
| Nikolay Khozyainov |
| |
| Martin James Bartlett |
Tomoki Sakata[ Japaner gewinnt Kissinger KlavierOlymp , Bayerischer Rundfunk (BR 24), 7 October 2019] |
Sergey Tanin[ Sergey Tanin gewinnt Kissinger KlavierOlymp, Musik heute, 5 October 2020] |
Giorgi Gigashvili[ Giorgi Gigashvili siegt beim 19. Kissinger Klavierolymp, klassik.com, 5 October 2021] |
| 20. | Tony Siqi Yun[ Roman Borisov gewinnt 20. Kissinger Klavierolymp, Bayerischer Rundfunk (BR24), 10 October 2022] |
| 21. | Miyu Shindo[ Krankenhaus statt großer Bühne , Bayerischer Rundfunk (BR Klassik), 9. Oktober 2023] |
| 22. | 2024 | Illia Ovcharenko | Jérémie Moreau | Onutė Gražinytė | Simon Haje[ Illia Ovcharenko gewinnt Kissinger KlavierOlymp Klassik.com, 8. October 2024] |
| 23. | 2025 | Alon Kariv | Dmitry Yudin | Elia Cecino | Dmitry Yudin[ Alon Kariv gewinnt Klavierolymp 2025, Bayerischer Rundfunk (BR Klassik), 6. October 2025 ] |
External links
