This year’s 26th edition of the “Golden Autumn” will be the last under the direction of Gerd Amelung. After the festival, which has the motto “Music.Innovation”, closes in 2025, mezzo-soprano Alice Lackner will become the new director. A preview of the last edition under Amelung will be given in the evening with a prologue concert in Weimar’s Herderkirche, as the organizers announced. Music will be played by Johann Theile (1646-1724), a master student of the important early Baroque composer Heinrich Schütz.
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“The last edition I have planned is particularly close to my heart – we are returning to Gotha, the city that has unreservedly supported our new concept from the very beginning,” said Amelung, according to the statement. The harpsichord specialist has been responsible for the festival since 2018 and taught for many years at the Franz Liszt University of Music in Weimar. He is now moving his life to France.
Last year, around 1,000 visitors came to the events. A similar response is expected this year. One of the eight events is already fully booked: an excursion to historic organs in the Gotha area with the future festival director, among others.
Tangent piano and a notorious tenor
At the opening concert on September 27th in the Margarethenkirche Gotha, the Ensemble Polyharmonique will be playing “Penitential Psalms” by Wolfgang Carl Briegel (1626-1712). On the last day of the festival on September 29th, in addition to a celebratory service with the Baroque Orchestra of the Thuringia Philharmonic Gotha-Eisenach, two further concerts are planned: in the Castle Church Gotha, the musician Flóra Fábri will play the Tangent Grand Piano and the Clavecin Royal, two keyboard instruments that are rarely heard these days.
The closing concert in the baroque Ekhof Theater at Friedenstein Castle is dedicated to the 450th birthday of the notorious tenor Francesco Rasi. Rasi is considered an important figure in the history of music around 1600 and was Claudio Monteverdi’s (1567-1643) first “Orfeo” in the opera of the same name. However, Rasi is also said to have been responsible for a murder.
© dpa-infocom, dpa:240922-930-239588/1
