How it all began… 13. April 2020

#origin

Goldberg Variationen in der Septettfassung von Heribert Breuer, Sommerkonzerte Volkenroda 2019

© Harald Heim

Since 2012, the summer concerts have been taking place in the Thuringian Volkenroda Monastery – a chamber music festival that explores the connection between classical music and architectural space. Once a year, this festival brings together performers from the most diverse disciplines (music, drama, dance, scenography, media art). Together the team explores this field of tension between the arts and develops new formats of encounter. In 2019 the festival motto was “simple”. So it was obvious to reduce the musical encounter between musician and listener to the simplest – a 1:1 CONCERT. Thus this concert format was born.

KLOSTER VOLKENRODA: Situated in the geographical centre of Germany and marked by an eventful history, the Volkenroda Monastery near Mühlhausen has become a place of hopeful departure. Volkenroda Monastery, founded in 1131, has the oldest Cistercian monastery church still preserved in Germany. Today, a fresh wind blows through old walls and a contemporary life unfolds in the coexistence of monastic community and youth education, culture and agriculture. The Christus-Pavillon by gmp Architekten is particularly noteworthy: the impressive building was sustainably reconstructed after the EXPO World Exposition in Volkenroda in 2000 and has been used intensively for cultural purposes ever since.

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