Music festival fears for city's image after attack

The Dresden Music Festival fears for the image of the city on the Elbe after the brutal attack on election workers. "It's devastating for the city because it plays on stereotypes," said festival director Jan Vogler on Monday in Dresden shortly before the start of the festival. Music can promote tolerance and communication on a small scale and bring people together. Then an event like this comes like a hurricane and sweeps everything away. The festival was also working to convey a cosmopolitan climate. Such events stand in stark contrast to this.

Last Friday, four young men beat up an SPD politician in Dresden, leaving him hospitalized. He had to be operated on. Vogler spoke of a terrible story that should not be relativized and for which there is no excuse. However, it could have happened anywhere else. Dresden is a great city with many positive aspects. Unfortunately, the artist, who lives in New York and Dresden, said that there is sometimes a very narrow way of thinking around the world. The topic of understanding seems to have gone out of fashion. But music in particular could play a role here. The Dresden Music Festival is also committed to this.

The 47th edition of the festival begins this Thursday with a kind of prelude: Richard Wagner's "Valkyrie" will be performed on period instruments in a concert version. The performance is part of the musical-scientific project "The Wagner Cycles", with which the festival aims to get closer to the original sound of Wagner's music at the time it was composed. The Dresden Festival Orchestra and Concerto Köln will perform under the direction of Kent Nagano. The official opening concert will take place the following day with the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra from Amsterdam under the direction of its designated chief conductor Klaus Mäkelä - a shooting star of the profession.

Under the motto "HORIZONTE", a total of 60 concerts from classical to rock are planned until 9 June. With Philippe Herreweghe and the Collegium Vocale Gent as well as Jordi Savall, icons of early music will also be performing. Jazz, world music, electro, pop and rock make up a third of the concerts. Rock legend Sting will be taking to the strings, as will world musician Anoushka Shankar. Guests also include the electro-pop duo Etna, jazz singers Jane Monheit and Stacey Kent, the London Philharmonia Orchestra and the Czech Philharmonic Orchestra. Vogler himself will be performing as a soloist with his cello.