On Thursday, June 7, 2012, saw the first presentation in Berlin of the ›Joseph Joachim International Violin Competition
Hannover 2012‹, a development that serves to underline the Competition’s national and international significance. In the 21 years of its existence the Competition has come to occupy a firm place in the international music scene, and is unique in Germany. Among those present were Joachim Werren, Secretary General of the Stiftung Niedersachsen (the Foundation of Lower Saxony), which organizes the Competition, the Artistic Director Professor Krzysztof Wegrzyn and the First Prize Winner of the 2009 competition, Fumiaki Miura, who since then has been able to take some substantial steps forward in his career. Attention was drawn to various connections between the Competition and the national capital, Berlin, which is among the places that Joseph Joachim (1831-1907), the ›violinist of the century‹ for whom the Competition is named, was active in. He was the founding Rector of the Königlich Akademische Hochschule für ausübende Tonkunst (High School for Musical Perfomance at the Royal Academy of Music), later absorbed into what is now the Berlin University of the Arts.

This year, 2012, the ›8th Joseph Joachim International Violin Competition Hannover‹ will be taking place in the capital of the State of Lower Saxony from September 29 to October 13. The Competition, which has been held every three years since 1991, is the most highly endowed violin competition in the world. It will be launched in festive fashion on September 29 with a concert featuring Fumiaki Miura and the Lower Saxony State Orchestra Hannover under its principal conductor Karen Kamensek. Further major orchestral concerts will then mark the completion of each successive stage of the 2012 Competition: the Special Concert with the violinist Viktoria Mullova and the NDR (North German Broadcasting) Radio Philharmonic Orchestra under Arvo Volmer (October 5); the Semifinals with the Munich Chamber Orchestra, present at the Competition for the first time, which the participants will direct from the violin; the Final Concerts with the NDR Radio Philharmonic Orchestra under the Finnish conductor Hannu Lintu (October 11 and 12); and the festive Prize Winners’ Gala Concert (October 13).

The purpose and objective of the ›Joseph Joachim International Violin Competition Hannover‹ is to put the total of €140,000 in prize money to good use by creating a platform for exceptional young musicians, from which, starting out from Hannover with the aid of the Stiftung Niedersachsen, they will be able to embark on international careers. Ever since it was first established, the Competition has on each occasion commissioned a new work from a contemporary composer, in order to constantly enrich the existing repertoire. This year, the commission has been awarded to the Munich composer Peter Francesco Marino. The ›Joseph Joachim International Violin Competition Hannover‹ also encompasses a wide-ranging Complementary Program, through which it has long burst the bounds of a mere competition and has grown into a comprehensive program for the advancement of music and musicians. One feature of the Complementary Program is the series of discussion forums entitled ›Audience Academy‹, which take up matters of current interest in the world of music and issues relating to the competition program with and before audiences; in 2012, these discussions will be led by the musicologist and concert programming adviser Dr Markus Fein.

The ›Joseph Joachim International Violin Competition Hannover‹ was established by the Stiftung Niedersachsen in 1989, on the initiative of Krzysztof Wegrzyn. Through its dedication it pays homage to Joseph Joachim (1831-1907), who was Royal Concertmaster in Hannover from 1852 to 1867. The Violin Competition is the most extensive program that the Stiftung Niedersachsen organizes itself.
Further information can be found at www.jjv-hannover.de

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This release was published on openPR.