CREATING MUSICAL INDEPENDENCE IN VIEW OF HEINRICH SCHIFFS VISION

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ACHIEVEMENTS

CONCERTS

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OUR JOURNEY

BERNHARD M. VOSS

PRIMAVERA

COMPANIONS

CONCERTS 2023

SCHLOSSTHEATER
SCHÖNBRUNN
VIENNA

CHAMBER ORCHESTRA

VALSASSINA ENSEMBLE WIEN

CONCERT

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Jack Ridley

 

Conductor

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British Music of the 20th Century

 

with:

Natalia Kawalek, Ulrike Sych

BENJAMIN

BRITTEN

RALPH
VAUGHAN WILLIAMS

AO

REPERTOIRE

CHAMBER ORCHESTRA

VALSASSINA ENSEMBLE WIEN

PALAIS
COLLOREDO

CONCERT

CHAMBER ORCHESTRA

VALSASSINA ENSEMBLE WIEN

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Jack Ridley

 

Conductor

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Music of the 20th Century

 

with:

León de Castillo

MARCEL RUBIN

 

HANNS EISLER

RUTH SCHOENTHAL

AO

REPERTOIRE

CHAMBER ORCHESTRA

VALSASSINA ENSEMBLE WIEN

PALAIS
WUERTTEMBERG

CHAMBER ORCHESTRA

VALSASSINA ENSEMBLE WIEN

CONCERT

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Jack Ridley

 

Conductor

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Viennese Songs

 

with:

León de Castillo

RUDOLF SIECZYNSKI

 

CARL BOHM


AO

REPERTOIRE

CHAMBER ORCHESTRA

VALSASSINA ENSEMBLE WIEN

 

 

 

 

 

With which composer would you like to go for a coffee?/ Which composer would you have liked to go for a coffee with?

 

Probably Liszt – he was such a champion of music and of composers who weren’t necessarily very fashionable, and as a composer and performer himself he really broke new ground.  Bernstein, perhaps, as well – I reckon he’d be a good one for anecdotes.  Of living composers, Birtwistle would be pretty high up on my list, not least because I’m working on an opera of his in the spring, and he could give me some extra insight into it!

 

 

 

 

 

Where would you most like to perform?

 

Obviously there is huge prestige attached to performing in certain concert halls or theatres: I would love to conduct at the Royal Albert Hall because the BBC Proms Festival was such a big part of my childhood.  But I’m also interested in performing in more unusual spaces – places where people wouldn’t necessarily expect classical music to be performed, such that it reaches more people, and is released from the concert hall where it is framed as an “event”, rather than simply something which is part of everyday life.  I think that if concert producers were willing to take more risks with venues, it could go a long way towards shedding the stuffy connotations which are sometimes associated with classical music.

 

 

 

 

 

With whom would you ideally like to collaborate?

 

I love collaborating with friends – like with the Valsassina – because nothing is off-limit and there  is an innate trust, which really allows you so much freedom.  So far I’ve not had any problems with any musicians that I have worked with, and I’ve had huge fortune to work with some fantastically talented people, all of whom I would love to work with again.  There are lots of contemporaries of mine, both in Vienna and London, with whom I have not worked yet, so I hope that can be rectified. Of “star names”, Daniel Barenboim would probably be top of my list, but I have an almost endless list of artists who I have grown up in awe of, and with whom it would be a dream to make music.

 

 

 

 

 

What was your finest moment on stage?

 

Technically in the pit, rather than on the stage, but conducting The Rape of Lucretia with Glyndebourne Touring Opera – both on the main stage at Glyndebourne in the dress rehearsal and on tour in Canterbury – was very special for me.  Also at university, I conducted a performance of Haydn’s Nelsonmesse, which wasn’t of a remarkably high standard, but which used soloists, singers and players all from my college, both staff and students, and was a really historic and cohesive event.

 

 

 

 

 

Which work would you like to conduct?

 

There are so many that it’s lucky that I have the rest of my life to work on them!  High on my list is Britten’s The Turn of the Screw; symphonically I absolutely adore Shostakovich Symphony No. 7 (so much so that I’ve lost any critical capacity towards it), so that would be well up there too.  Tristan und Isolde deserves a mention too, but I think it will be a long time before I’m ready for it...

 

 

 

 

 

Can music change the world?

 

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Valsassina Ensemble Wien


making music since 2011

playing concerts since 2013

 

 

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Jack Ridley

 

Conductor