Two Concert Recordings And A documentary – Accentus Music Lucerne Festival 2016

On 12 August, Riccardo Chailly will step up to the podium as the third music director of the Lucerne Festival Orchestra and conduct Gustav Mahler’s 8th Symphony. It is the single work that remained unperformed in Claudio Abbado’s Mahler cycle.

Chailly and the orchestra will honour the maestro and bring the “Symphony of a Thousand” to the stage with the Bavarian Radio Choir, Orfeón Donostiarra, the Tölzer Knabenchor and an outstanding lineup of soloists. Accentus Music is continuing its longstanding partnership with the Lucerne Festival and will record Chailly’s inaugural concert on 12 and 13 August at the Lucerne Culture and Congress Centre in coproduction with SRF and ARTE G.E.I.E.

Traditionally, the Berliner Philharmoniker and their principal conductor are guests at the Lucerne Festival during the summer. This year, the orchestra and its chief conductor Sir Simon Rattle will be performing Johannes Brahms’ 2nd Symphony and Antonín Dvorák’s Slavonic Dances. The programme also includes the Swiss premiere of Julian Anderson’s Incantesimi. Accentus Music will produce the concert on 31 August 2016 in coproduction with ZDF/ARTE.

Being a female conductor means being an exception, even today. When a woman stands on the podium she is, in most cases, somehow “the first”. At the same time it seems that the world of the maestro is now in a state of upheaval. The young Lithuanian conductor Mirga Gražinyte-Tyla, who will take over the post of Andris Nelsons in Birmingham this September, said with conviction: “I really believe that something is changing now.” But why is it that there have been so few female conductors? To take a closer look at this phenomenon, the 52-minute documentary MAESTRAS (WT) will follow several female conductors at this year’s Lucerne Festival, which with the motto “PrimaDonna” also dedicates itself to this theme. MAESTRAS (WT) is a coproduction of SRF and Accentus Music. Directed by Maria Stodtmeier and Günter Atteln.