This year, the Heinrich Schütz Music Festival in the composer's former places of activity is focusing on women. Under the motto "untamed.creative.female", the festival will focus on female contemporaries of Schütz (1585-1672), who appeared as singers, instrumentalists, composers and poets, the festival announced in Dresden on Monday. "They were astute, artistic and untamed, but at the same time also thoughtful, shaken, exalted or even frustrated. A time of upheaval is reflected in music, poetry and painting and is full of emotion," explained Sven Rössel from the Association of Central German Baroque Music in Saxony, Saxony-Anhalt and Thuringia.
The association is organizing the festival from 4 to 13 October in Dresden, Bad Köstritz, Gera, Weißenfels and Zeitz. The program includes more than 40 events: Concerts, lectures, exhibitions and guided tours as well as musical church services and vespers. Guests include dulcimer player Elisabeth Seitz, soprano Isabel Schicketanz, viola da gamba virtuoso Hille Perl and countertenor Terry Wey. To kick off the festival, the piece "Tiefhoffnungsblau", which combines parts of Schütz's "Symphoniae Sacrae" with texts, will be performed on October 4 in St. Marienkirche Weißenfels as a work commissioned by the festival. After Weißenfels, it can be experienced in the Johanniskirche Gera and the Dreikönigskirche Dresden over the next two days.
