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Deutsche Grammophon China and Xinghai Concert Hall Present the Inaugural DG Music Festival in Guangzhou

Curated by Daniel Hope, the four-day festival celebrates classical music, cross-cultural collaboration and China&rsquo;s emerging musical voices, November 15&ndash;18, 2026
GUANGZHOU, CHINA &mdash; Deutsche Grammophon China and Xinghai Concert Hall will jointly present the inaugural DG Music Festival in Guangzhou from November 15 to 18, 2026. The first officially presented in-person music festival in the label&rsquo;s nearly 130-year history will bring together leading Chinese and international artists for four days of concerts, exhibitions and encounters with audiences.
With the globally renowned violinist and DG artist Daniel Hope serving as the festival&rsquo;s Curator and Guest Artistic Director, the programme features three headline concerts alongside a wide-ranging series of exhibitions and public events. Participating artists include cellist Jian Wang, pianists Xiaofu Ju and Yingjia Xue, guzheng artist Yang Yang, vocalist Linna Gong and the AIR Ensemble. Immediately preceding the core festival performances, longstanding DG artist Yuja Wang will be appearing at Xinghai Concert Hall with Mahler Chamber Orchestra and kicking off the celebration.
Spanning solo recitals, chamber music, vocal performances and cross-cultural collaborations, the festival places classical masterworks alongside traditional melodies, new arrangements and original compositions. It invites audiences across the Greater Bay Area to experience music as a living dialogue between cultures and generations.
A Historic Partnership, a Long-Term Vision
Founded in 1898, Deutsche Grammophon has long been one of the world&rsquo;s most prestigious classical music labels. With nearly three decades of history, Xinghai Concert Hall is an internationally renowned, world-class concert hall and one of China&rsquo;s most influential performing arts venues.
Launched in 2025, DG China is dedicated to discovering and supporting Chinese musical talent in keeping with DG&rsquo;s artistic standards, and bringing China&rsquo;s voices to the world. The festival marks an important step in that commitment. More than a touring event, it is envisioned as a lasting cultural initiative developed together with Xinghai Concert Hall.
Guangzhou&rsquo;s longstanding openness to international exchange provides a fitting setting for this collaboration. Bringing DG&rsquo;s recording heritage into dialogue with Xinghai Concert Hall&rsquo;s dynamic artistic programme, the festival will create a shared space for established masters, emerging artists and audiences to listen, discover and connect.
Dr. Clemens Trautmann, President Deutsche Grammophon and New Business Strategy Global Classics at Universal Music: &ldquo;For nearly 130 years, Deutsche Grammophon has championed exceptional artists and brought their music to audiences around the world. The inaugural DG Music Festival in Guangzhou opens a new chapter in that mission, creating a space where our artistic heritage meets the energy and imagination of Chinese musicians. With Daniel Hope as Curator and Xinghai Concert Hall as our esteemed partner, we look forward to celebrating the power of live music to connect cultures, generations and communities.&rdquo;
&ldquo;We hope that what we create over these four days at Xinghai Concert Hall will be more than a few concerts: a truly open musical space that welcomes all music and conveys hope and energy,&rdquo; says Daniel Hope, Curator and Guest Artistic Director of DG Music Festival. &ldquo;Music&rsquo;s most precious power is not to show us how different we are, but to remind us to share, understand and discover together.&rdquo;
Three Concerts, Three Musical Journeys
Salut d&rsquo;Amour
November 16, 2026 | 8:00 p.m. Jian Wang and Yingjia Xue
The festival&rsquo;s opening headline concert pairs celebrated cellist Jian Wang with pianist Xue Yingjia in a programme of lyrical miniatures spanning the Classical era, Romanticism and the twentieth century.
Highlights include works by Schumann, Saint-Sa&euml;ns, Faur&eacute;, Tchaikovsky, Piazzolla and Elgar, alongside Chinese composer Liu Rongfa&rsquo;s Pastoral Song. Daniel Hope will also make a special appearance.
The first Chinese musician to sign an exclusive contract with DG, Jian Wang embodies a longstanding connection between the label and Chinese artistry. His newly recorded Bach Cello Suites, released in 2025, also marked DG China&rsquo;s first album release.
Music in Harmony
November 17, 2026 | 8:00 p.m. International Masters Meet DG China
Daniel Hope and Jian Wang join Nicola Mosca, principal cellist of the Zurich Chamber Orchestra, and DG China artists Xiaofu Ju and Yang Yang for an evening of musical exchange across generations and traditions.
Bringing together violin, cello, piano, guzheng and Irish harp, the programme includes selections from Tan Dun&rsquo;s Hero Concerto, Mendelssohn&rsquo;s Piano Trio No. 1 in D minor, and Xiaofu Ju&rsquo;s arrangements of Dowland&rsquo;s In Darkness Let Me Dwell and Mozart&rsquo;s Lacrimosa from Requiem.
Yang Yang contributes her original work Tianmu Yin and her own arrangement of Ludovico Einaudi&rsquo;s Nuvole Bianche. Autumn Moon over the Calm Lake, arranged by Paul Bateman, and Piazzolla&rsquo;s Winter in Buenos Aires further expand the evening&rsquo;s cross-cultural conversation.
A Night of Brilliance
November 18, 2026 | 8:00 p.m. Daniel Hope, AIR Ensemble and Special Guest Linna Gong
The final headline concert brings Daniel Hope together with the AIR Ensemble and acclaimed vocalist Linna Gong for a journey across more than four centuries of music.
Rooted in the Baroque tradition, the AIR Ensemble moves fluently between early music, folk traditions and cross-cultural arrangements. The programme travels from Renaissance and Baroque Europe to Ireland and China, featuring music by composers including Ortiz, Corelli, Purcell and Vivaldi, alongside Irish traditional melodies and special arrangements of Chinese favourites such as Jasmine Flower, Colourful Clouds Chasing the Moon and The Moon Reflected in Erquan.
Beyond the Concert Stage
Throughout the four-day festival, exhibitions and public events will invite audiences to explore the stories, ideas and craftsmanship behind the music.
Four themed exhibitions will showcase performances and artist interviews from DG STAGE+ platform; trace the evolution of DG&rsquo;s album-cover design; celebrate vinyl recordings and the label&rsquo;s recording heritage; and introduce official DG merchandise to China.
The public programme will include a talk marking the 120th anniversary of Dmitri Shostakovich&rsquo;s birth, alongside artist conversations, music-sharing salons, a session exploring concert etiquette, city walks, signing events and an after-party.
These activities will offer opportunities for audiences to meet musicians beyond the concert stage, extending the festival into a broader cultural experience that encourages curiosity, participation and a deeper connection with classical music.
Full programme details, activity announcements and ticketing conditions are available through Xinghai Concert Hall&rsquo;s official channels.
DG Music Festival 2026 November 15&ndash;18, 2026 Xinghai Concert Hall, Guangzhou, China presented by Deutsche Grammophon China and Xinghai Concert Hall
Public Tickets Contact：<a href="mailto:program@concerthall.com.cn">program@concerthall.com.cn</a>

A Living Dialogue:  Daniel Hope Explores the Soul of Ukrainian Music  on 'Born in Ukraine'

Daniel Hope traces 150 years of Ukrainian music, from Lysenko, Bortkiewicz, Leontovych, Stepovy and Lyatoshynsky to Valentin Silvestrov, Alexey Shor and Vitalii Kyianytsia
Two world premiere recordings frame the album &ndash; Shor&rsquo;s Footprints in the Sand and Kyianytsia&rsquo;s Adagio from the ballet The Perfect Scent
Hope is joined by three young Ukrainian pianists: Alina Pronina, Roman Fediurko and Vitalii Kyianytsia
Born in Ukraine &ndash; 150 Years of Ukrainian Music will be released digitally and on CD on 6 November 2026
For his latest Deutsche Grammophon recording, Daniel Hope is returning to the music of Ukraine, tracing its rich history from the 19th century to the present day. Following his album of works by Valentin Silvestrov and his EP Music for Ukraine, both recorded with pianist Alexey Botvinov, Born in Ukraine &ndash; 150 Years of Ukrainian Music reflects the violinist&rsquo;s long-term and ongoing engagement with Ukrainian culture.
On Born in Ukraine Hope performs a selection of works for violin and piano, including new arrangements, alongside three young Ukrainian pianists &ndash; Vitalii Kyianytsia, Alina Pronina and Roman Fediurko &ndash; whose own backgrounds and musical perspectives bring a deeply personal dimension to the project. Together they explore music by three living composers &ndash; Silvestrov, Alexey Shor and Kyianytsia himself &ndash; including two world premiere recordings, as well as works by five pioneering figures from Ukraine&rsquo;s musical past: Lysenko, Bortkiewicz, Leontovych, Stepovy and Lyatoshynsky. Born in Ukraine is set for release digitally and on CD on 6&nbsp;November 2026.
Hope calls the project &ldquo;a journey into Ukrainian musical identity&rdquo; marked by moments of &ldquo;lyricism, nostalgia, exile, hope and quiet resilience&rdquo;. Over the last decade he has visited Odessa many times, building on the affinity he already felt with Ukraine&rsquo;s violinistic tradition: &ldquo;That goes back to [my teacher] Zakhar Bron, to David Oistrakh, to Stolyarsky. And I guess I wanted to know more about where that musical soul comes from.&rdquo; His choice of title for the album is, he says, intentionally simple. &ldquo;It reminds us that behind every score is a human story &ndash; a composer shaped by a place, a culture and a history.&rdquo;
Hope&rsquo;s explorations led him back to Mykola Lysenko (1842-1912), one of the foundational figures of Ukrainian classical music, represented here by his Elegy. He also selected works by Sergei Bortkiewicz (1877-1952) and his contemporary Mykola Leontovych (1877-1921). He calls Leontovych&rsquo;s Shchedryk (later transformed into the &ldquo;Carol of the Bells&rdquo;) &ldquo;a melody that has travelled the world while remaining forever rooted in Ukrainian soil&rdquo;. Less familiar are the Prelude by Yakiv Stepovy (1883-1921), originally for solo piano, and the yearning Melody by Borys Lyatoshynsky (1895-1968). Roman Fediurko, who won the Bronze Medal at the 2026 Arthur Rubinstein International Piano Master Competition, joins Hope in all five pieces.
In recent years, Hope has worked closely with Valentin Silvestrov (b.&nbsp;1937) and discovered &ldquo;the quiet humanity that shines through everything he writes&rdquo;. Here, he and Vitalii Kyianytsia (b.&nbsp;1991) perform the Elegie from Silvestrov&rsquo;s 5 Pieces and the third of his 3&nbsp;Postludes, originally for cello and piano. Kyianytsia&rsquo;s own Adagio, from the ballet The Perfect Scent, premiered by Ballett Kiel earlier this year, closes the album. It is one of a pair of world premiere recordings that frame Born in Ukraine, which opens with Footprints in the Sand by Alexey Shor (b.&nbsp;1970), performed with Alina Pronina. Hope and Pronina also play Shor&rsquo;s Violin Sonata No.&nbsp;1, a work the violinist has described as &ldquo;technically challenging&rdquo; and offering &ldquo;a concentrated dialogue between the violin and piano&rdquo;.
Hope is full of praise for his three young colleagues, noting how much he learned during the sessions from listening to &ldquo;something they do naturally &hellip; how they would express this Ukrainian voice in their own way&rdquo;. He adds: &ldquo;Their voices, perspectives, and experiences have shaped every note of this recording, reminding me that music is, above all, a living dialogue between generations.&rdquo;
&ldquo;My hope,&rdquo; he concludes, &ldquo;is that this album encourages listeners not only to discover some of Ukraine&rsquo;s remarkable musical treasures, but also to celebrate a cultural legacy that has enriched European music for generations. At a time when that legacy continues to face immense challenges, preserving and sharing these voices feels more important than ever.&rdquo;
Highlights of Daniel Hope&rsquo;s schedule at the start of the 2026-27 season include performances of Vivaldi&rsquo;s The Four Seasons and Max Richter&rsquo;s Vivaldi Recomposed with the Z&uuml;rcher Kammerorchester at the Festspiele Mecklenburg-Vorpommern and Klassikfestival K&uuml;snacht (9/10 &amp; 20&nbsp;September); Elgar&rsquo;s Violin Concerto with the Gstaad Festival Orchestra under Jaap van Zweden in venues across Germany (29&nbsp;September-3&nbsp;October); and music from the 2024 album Irish Roots at the Merano Festival (16&nbsp;September). Hope also leads New Century Chamber Orchestra in a four-concert series with the Marcus Roberts Trio celebrating the music of Gershwin, Ellington, Rhiannon Giddens and Caroline Shaw (California, 5-8&nbsp;November). Full touring details <a href="https://www.deutschegrammophon.com/en/artists/danielhope/on-tour">here</a>.

Daniel Hope on Irish Roots - An interview with the artist

Ireland flows through Daniel Hope&rsquo;s blood courtesy of his paternal great-grandfather, who left his home in the seafaring city of Waterford in the 1890s to build a new life in South Africa. Daniel McKenna gave his great-grandson his name. The music of Ireland, from bar-room reels and country jigs to concert pieces that captivated audiences in Dublin and beyond, also runs deep in the violinist&rsquo;s soul. Set for release on 5 July 2024, his latest Deutsche Grammophon album, Irish Roots, takes the listener on an expedition of discovery filled with familiar landmarks, creative adventures and musical surprises.
Although Hope has never lived in Ireland, he cherishes the place that provided him and his stateless family with citizen status almost half a century ago, after they were forced to leave South Africa to seek political asylum. His fascination with its culture and family tales of the old country led him to make a documentary for ARTE and WDR entitled Celtic Dreams: Daniel Hope&rsquo;s Hidden Irish History, first aired in spring 2022. He also began exploring the connections between folk and classical music in Ireland, supported by musicologist Olivier Four&eacute;s and performance experiences with award-winning Irish band L&uacute;nasa.
Irish Roots followed naturally from there, propelled by Hope&rsquo;s desire to investigate and express previously dormant strands of his musical DNA. Among other pieces, it includes music by 20th-century composer Ina Boyle, works by the great bard and harpist Turlough O&rsquo;Carolan, and traditional favourites such as Danny Boy, as well as making room for classical pieces by itinerant foreigners and the fifth of Vivaldi&rsquo;s L&rsquo;estro armonico concertos, a smash hit in Ireland 300 years ago. Daniel Hope is joined on his new album by a stellar line-up of guest artists, including L&uacute;nasa, harpist Siobh&aacute;n Armstrong, flautists Sir James and Lady Jeanne Galway, singer Rea Garvey, multi-instrumentalist and folk musician Ross Daly, fellow violinist Simos Papanas, and the Thessaloniki State Symphony Orchestra conducted by Daniel Geiss.
&nbsp;
If a listener came across Irish Roots without knowing a thing about you or your backstory, they&rsquo;d be able to tell that this is a deeply personal album. What do Ireland and its music mean to you?
From the time we left South Africa in the early 1970s until four or five years ago, I held only Irish nationality. My father was handed an exit permit by the South African authorities, which basically said, &ldquo;Get out, and stay out&rdquo;. It meant we lost our South African citizenship, so we were stranded as stateless exiles, first in Paris, then in London. My mother discovered that if you had an Irish grandmother, you could apply for Irish citizenship. She tracked down various birth certificates and other documents in Waterford, filled in some forms and suddenly we were Irish! That identity was handed to me before I could walk. It was only much later that I realised it had probably saved us; certainly it meant we could stay and work in London, which ultimately led to my mother becoming Yehudi Menuhin&rsquo;s secretary. I&rsquo;ve kept my Irish citizenship precisely because of the enormous gratitude I feel towards Ireland and for what it means to my entire family.
I got to know my Irish relatives and in particular my grandmother, whose father and my namesake, Daniel McKenna, ran away from Ireland to South Africa just before the Second Boer War broke out in 1899. She and her sister grew up there but would often talk about their Irish roots. That background was always present, as it is in my father&rsquo;s books, where he talks a great deal about Ireland, his Irish identity and his grandfather. Recently we found Daniel McKenna&rsquo;s grave in Johannesburg, a deeply moving moment. While I was filming Celtic Dreams, my father and I also discovered the tiny terraced house in Waterford, Ireland in which my great-grandfather grew up. Just a few doors away in the same street, I noticed a plaque on the wall of a neighbouring house. It read that the Flanagan Brothers, &ldquo;Irish Music Ambassors to America&rdquo;, had lived there for many years, before leaving for New York where they would become the dance-hall sensations of the 1920 and 30s. Their phonograph records extended their popularity and fame, reaching the homes of Irish emigrants throughout the world. Among other hits, they wrote Red Haired Boy, which I&rsquo;ve included on the album. The thought of the McKenna family of 12 &ndash; who remained in the same house even after my great-grandfather had left Ireland &ndash; and the Flanagans singing, dancing and making music in that street on a hot summer&rsquo;s evening was simply incredible!
Of course it was one thing to have an Irish passport and close family ties to Ireland, quite another for me to actually perform Irish music! I was unsure about whether I might dare step into that rich sound-world at all, so I held back from doing much about it in public for more than 10 years and quietly, and very privately, continued studying, reading and researching.
&nbsp;
What gave you the confidence to explore Irish traditional music and eventually perform it? 
Like so many people, I have loved listening to Irish music for as long as I can remember. In 2004, I began a curatorial role at the Savannah Music Festival, the classical side of which I subsequently helped run for 16 years. L&uacute;nasa were booked to play a concert there in 2006, which the festival director, Rob Gibson, insisted I absolutely must hear. I was mesmerised by L&uacute;nasa, that sound of the uilleann pipes, especially in Cillian Vallely&rsquo;s hands, Se&aacute;n Smyth masterful on the fiddle, Kevin Crawford playing up a storm on the flute. The whole group was so inspired. And in a sense, it felt like I&rsquo;d come home. And yet, although I could feel and react to the music, that alone wasn&rsquo;t enough to convince me I should actually try playing it. But I did realise that one day the time would come. And then in 2016, L&uacute;nasa came to the Schleswig-Holstein Music Festival, with which I have a very close association. They asked if I&rsquo;d like to join them on one of their sets. I knew my time had come, so I agreed! We played Morning Nightcap, which I&rsquo;d heard them perform in Savannah. They probably thought that would be the one I&rsquo;d be less likely to mess up. Well, I did mess it up &ndash; but at least I did it with conviction!
When we sat down in Schleswig-Holstein over a pint, I said, &ldquo;By the way &ndash; I&rsquo;m Irish&rdquo;. They couldn&rsquo;t believe it! Then we started talking about my great-grandfather and the whole McKenna clan, and they said we simply had to do more together. That was the trigger moment when I started thinking about whether I could build a full programme of Irish music and become at ease with playing it in concert. The fact that L&uacute;nasa would allow an outsider into a group that&rsquo;s so perfect and so tightly knit was remarkable. I&rsquo;ve rarely felt more at ease making music as I do when I&rsquo;m with those fellas. 
L&uacute;nasa believed we could play a whole show together, so in 2023 we met up again to perform three concerts, again at the Schleswig-Holstein Music Festival. They welcomed me with open arms and I jumped right in there! It was extremely important for me to have L&uacute;nasa on the album, as they were the musicians who let me into the world of playing Irish music. I spent days rehearsing with them, in particular watching and listening to Se&aacute;n&rsquo;s way of playing the fiddle for hours on end before going away to try things for myself. We subsequently went to record at Windmill Lane Studios in Dublin, where U2, The Chieftains, even The Rolling Stones have made albums. At the end of the sessions, the L&uacute;nasa fellas said it had been really good for them to get out of their comfort zone and rethink pieces they&rsquo;ve played together for years. And for me, making music together has been a magical experience.
&nbsp;
After we performed Morning Nightcap in Schleswig-Holstein, I began researching the connections between Irish traditional and classical music. That led me to works by composers such as the Dublin-based, Hungarian-born Johann Sigismund Kusser, the Anglo-Irish musician Thomas Roseingrave and the great Irish bard Turlough O&rsquo;Carolan, as well as to discover the incredible popularity in Ireland in the 18th century of pieces by Vivaldi and Domenico Scarlatti, the latter of whom actually performed in Dublin.
&nbsp;
The composers you&rsquo;ve just mentioned reflect the cosmopolitan nature of music in Ireland, especially in 18th-century Dublin, which was effectively the second city of Britain&rsquo;s growing empire and an important destination for musicians from across Europe. How did you find the classical pieces that are on the album?
I consulted the extraordinary musicologist Olivier Four&eacute;s. He asked me if I knew what the most famous piece of music was throughout the British Isles, including Ireland, during the 18th century. I had no idea. He revealed it to be &ldquo;the Fifth of Vivaldi&rdquo;, or Concerto No.&nbsp;5 for two violins in A&nbsp;major from Vivaldi&rsquo;s L&rsquo;estro armonico, Op.&nbsp;3. It was introduced to Ireland by the London-born violinist Matthew Dubourg, who&rsquo;d studied with Geminiani and succeeded Kusser as Master and Composer of State Music in Ireland in 1728. Dubourg led the band for the first performance of Handel&rsquo;s Messiah, given in Dublin in 1742, coincidentally the same year in which my violin was made. Dubourg used &ldquo;Vivaldi&rsquo;s Fifth&rdquo; to display his virtuosity. It became so popular that it was even played between acts in opera and theatre productions. The Scarlatti cult that arrived in Ireland in the early 1740s was due to Roseingrave, who&rsquo;d met Domenico Scarlatti in Italy during his teens and became completely obsessed by his music. These composers helped introduce Italian music to Ireland where it fed into the local culture. You can hear how Roseingrave brings folk and classical together in the Gavotte from the fifth of his Eight Suits of Lessons for the Harpsicord or Spinnet, first published in the 1720s.
Olivier even told me about unique versions of Vivaldi&rsquo;s music preserved in the Library of Trinity College Dublin as slip jigs, which were probably only played in Ireland. I began thinking about how one might broaden a programme to include traditional Irish tunes that everyone knows, like &ldquo;Molly Malone&rdquo; and &ldquo;Danny Boy&rdquo;, and Baroque pieces that were popular in Ireland, and began testing some ideas in concert over some years. I became increasingly fascinated by this connection between folk and classical music in Ireland and by the extraordinary, creative blend that it produced. Irish Roots grew out of that.
&nbsp;
The album contains pieces by another great musician from 18th-century Ireland, Turlough O&rsquo;Carolan. Can you explain why he&rsquo;s so significant?
O&rsquo;Carolan learned to play the harp after losing his sight as a teenager. He was a stellar performer, composer and songwriter who bridged the worlds of traditional and classical music by adding elements of the Italian concerto to his compositions. Whether or not he met Geminiani in Dublin, which he possibly did, O&rsquo;Carolan&rsquo;s Concerto is certainly a nod to Vivaldi and the Baroque concerto grosso. And O&rsquo;Carolan&rsquo;s Farewell, breathtakingly beautiful and deeply moving, is almost like a lament from a Baroque opera. 
From my experience of performing O&rsquo;Carolan and traditional Irish songs live, I think this music seems to touch people in a singular way: there&rsquo;s a joyful optimism and spirit about it and a heart-melting nostalgia for an Ireland of the imagination. 
&nbsp;
You&rsquo;ve included a beautiful piece by Ina Boyle, who trained in Dublin and later with Vaughan Williams in London. Her Phantasy for violin and chamber orchestra dates from 1926 but has only recently come to light. Although short, it&rsquo;s enormously powerful. How did you discover her music?
Her name came up when I was preparing to make Celtic Dreams. I contacted the Ina Boyle Society who told me about this piece that had hardly been performed before. They sent me her Phantasy and I immediately knew we had to do it for the film. I wanted to re-record it for the album too, so it was one of the pieces we produced with the Thessaloniki State Symphony Orchestra, a fabulous orchestra to which I have a close connection. We also recorded Makrinitsa by Ross Daly, a musician of Irish descent who&rsquo;s spent most of his life in Crete and has revolutionised Greek music by bringing it into dialogue with Irish and other musical traditions. The great violinist Simos Papanas &ndash; who leads the Thessaloniki orchestra, and with whom I formed the AIR Ensemble &ndash; plays second violin on the Vivaldi concerto and is an important part of the ensemble on several other tracks, as well as being one of my closest friends. Everything on the album is connected in this way, through friendship and cultural exchange, just as Irish music has always reached out to the wider world, and just as Irish musicians and their roots continue to touch people wherever they may find themselves.

DANCE! With Daniel Hope

Daniel Hope has long been fascinated by the power of dance to move and inspire. Taking listeners on a journey through seven centuries of music history, his latest Deutsche Grammophon album, DANCE!, celebrates the rhythms that have set bodies in motion and lifted hearts since time began. With everything from the anonymous 14th-century Lamento di Tristano to Wojciech Kilar&rsquo;s 1986 work Orawa, via classics by Purcell, Handel, Mozart, Saint-Sa&euml;ns, Florence Price and Duke Ellington, among many others, the album will be released digitally and on 2&nbsp;CDs on 2 February 2024.
Three of its tracks are set to be issued in the weeks to come, giving a taste of the rich variety of music on DANCE!: Waltz No. 2 from Shostakovich&rsquo;s Suite for Variety Orchestra on today, 8&nbsp;December 2023, &ldquo;Ticklin&rsquo; Toes&rdquo; from Florence Price&rsquo;s 3&nbsp;Little Negro Dances on 19&nbsp;January 2024 and Carlos Gardel&rsquo;s Por una cabeza alongside the album on 2&nbsp;February.
Hope first came up with a dance-based album concept over 20 years ago. Revisiting it for this DG project, he widened the repertoire considerably whilst sticking closely to his original concept &ndash; the universal significance and diversity of both dance and rhythm. He recorded DANCE! with the Z&uuml;rcher Kammerorchester, of which he has been Music Director since 2016; some tracks feature the full orchestra, while others are performed by smaller ensembles created to suit the work or genre in question. Featuring new arrangements by Hope&rsquo;s regular collaborator Paul Bateman, the album also boasts a stunning line-up of guest artists, including Jen&ouml; Lisztes (cimbalom), Omar Massa (bandoneon), Jacques Ammon (piano), Marie-Pierre Langlamet (harp) and Joscho Stephan (swing guitar).
DANCE! reflects the curiosity about all styles and periods of music that Hope inherited as a child from his mentor, teacher and friend Yehudi Menuhin. Ranging from medieval times to the 20th century, its repertoire includes music intended to entertain monarchs and to be heard in concert halls, tunes that began life in the fields and alehouses and on the streets, even dances with ritualistic elements designed to ward off disease and evil spirits &ndash; works that brought people together in good times and bad, and that literally danced their way into the hearts of everyone who heard them.

Daniel Hope · Alexey Botvinov: Silvestrov - An interview with the artists

Valentin Silvestrov&rsquo;s exquisite music has attracted global attention in recent months. The sights and sounds of war were part of the Ukrainian composer&rsquo;s childhood in Nazi-occupied Kyiv. They returned to haunt him eighty years later as Russian missiles announced the shocking start of a new invasion, one directed against an independent Ukraine by its hostile neighbour. Earlier this year violinist Daniel Hope and pianist Alexey Botvinov, himself an enforced exile from Odessa, greeted the composer in Berlin, his place of refuge. The duo&rsquo;s high-profile performance and fundraising EP of his music prepared the ground for their latest album for Deutsche Grammophon &ndash; set for release on 30 September 2022 &ndash; an all-Silvestrov programme complete with the world premiere recording of Pastorales 2020 and a selection of ineffably beautiful companion pieces. They share their reflections on the composer and why his music matters now more than ever.
&nbsp;
You planned to record this album of Silvestrov&rsquo;s music long before Russia invaded Ukraine. Can you sketch its origins and describe the circumstances in which it was made?
Daniel Hope: I&rsquo;ve visited and performed in Odessa for the past eight years thanks to Alexey Botvinov and his Odessa Classics Festival. I fell in love with the place and felt an instant connection to it. My teachers and violinistic heroes are all connected to Odessa, like so many great musicians. Alexey and I thought it would be wonderful to commission a piece by a Ukrainian composer to perform at the 2020 Festival. Without hesitation, he said, &ldquo;What about Silvestrov?&rdquo; It never even occurred to me to ask him, as he&rsquo;s so famous and so busy. I didn&rsquo;t believe we&rsquo;d be able to get him to do it. But Alexey did ask him and he came straight back and said, &ldquo;Yes, I want to do something.&rdquo; It was incredible.
Wearing my other hat as President of the Beethoven-Haus in Bonn, I spoke to my colleagues there about the idea of officially commissioning Silvestrov to compose a work for the 250th anniversary of Beethoven&rsquo;s birth in 2020. We took the liberty of suggesting it might have a connection to Beethoven&rsquo;s &ldquo;Pastoral&rdquo; Symphony, which was the focus for several important Beethoven Year projects. Silvestrov&rsquo;s new work, Pastorales 2020, reflects certain elements of Beethoven&rsquo;s Sixth Symphony and yet expresses them in an entirely original way.
Because of the pandemic, we never had the chance to perform the whole composition in public. But Alexey and I were already thinking about the follow-up to our album of music by Alfred Schnittke and wanted to record music by another strong, uncompromising character with whom we had a connection. My personal connection was to Schnittke; Alexey&rsquo;s is to Silvestrov. So we decided it had to be Silvestrov. As well as the world premiere of Pastorales 2020, the album also includes such extraordinarily beautiful pieces as the &ldquo;Chopin-Augenblicke&rdquo; from his Zwei St&uuml;cke (2003), the three exquisite miniatures of 25.X.1893&hellip;zum Andenken an P.I. Tschaikowskij, and the Hommage &agrave; J.S.B.
We&rsquo;d planned to meet and work with Silvestrov and record the album in Ukraine. We were scheduled to study with him in February and March this year, but the war came. With the help of friends and some journalists from the Deutsche Welle, Silvestrov was lucky to escape from Ukraine by foot, crossing the border into Poland and making his way to Berlin. Alexey and I had organised a performance on 11 March 2022 in aid of Ukraine at the Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church in Berlin, one of the most symbolic places in Germany. We heard Silvestrov had just arrived in the city and reached out to him. He came to the concert and we played that night for him. Performing his music for this cause, with him sitting in the front row, was a deeply moving experience. It made us even more determined to record this album.
The concert was televised, the church was packed and it was attended by the former Federal President of Germany. Silvestrov got up spontaneously and made an angry, impassioned speech, which was simultaneously translated from Russian to German. The audience gasped at some of his words, they were all sitting on the edge of their seats. Then, suddenly, he put the microphone down and walked to the piano. He sat down, saying he would play a piece of music which he had envisaged while he was escaping from Ukraine. This unbelievable beauty, almost a bouquet of sound, came out in direct contrast to his fearsome speech. It said a lot about him to me.
I&rsquo;d always been attracted to Silvestrov&rsquo;s music. But when you place it in the context of that concert and the images we had been seeing on television, well&hellip;! Alexey and I were recording this album at Schloss Elmau, a kind of &ldquo;Xanadu&rdquo;, as it were, while receiving increasingly horrendous messages about Ukraine every time we turned on our phones. It changes the way you think about, play and breathe this music. It certainly feels different having recorded it now, both natural and painful at the same time.
Before making the album, we recorded a digital EP for Deutsche Grammophon for the international aid charity Aktion Deutschland Hilft to raise funds for Ukraine. It contains pieces from Silvestrov&rsquo;s Melodies of the Moments cycle, together with works by fellow Ukrainian composer Myroslav Skoryk, who died in 2020, and former Odessa resident Jan Freidlin.
&nbsp;
This was your first meeting with Silvestrov, Daniel, but not your first encounter with his music. Listening to the album and to you talk about him, it&rsquo;s clear that his musical language touches you at the deepest level. Why do you think it goes so deep?
Daniel Hope: Silvestrov&rsquo;s music lives and breathes melody. When we perform his works for an audience, it has a profound effect. Its simplicity is, I believe, the deepest form of nurturing one&rsquo;s feelings and emotions right now. He gets to the core, to the source of being human. And he does that &ndash; and I say this with enormous respect &ndash; with a childlike simplicity. Yet his scores are tremendously dense with expression and dynamic markings. So what appears to be simple, basic melody is conceived within a constant state of change, a shifting of the tide. It&rsquo;s restless, arresting music within a soft shell. I don&rsquo;t know any other composer like him. His is a deeply emotional music expressed in the very subtlest ways.
&nbsp;
What Silvestrov calls his metamusic or &ldquo;metaphorical music&rdquo;, as the name implies, is symbolic of something much greater than the sum of its parts. He has spoken of his pursuit of a universal music, rooted in melody and the expressive gestures of song, something open to shared human experience. It is the opposite of those divisions and hatreds created since the start of the Ukraine war, which we&rsquo;ve seen in the crude associations of past Russian music with contemporary Russian geopolitics. How do you feel about the suppression of Russian artists on the world stage?
Alexey Botvinov: We can talk about this political issue of cancelling Russian music, but of course I don&rsquo;t agree with it. I know this is also true for Silvestrov: for him, Tchaikovsky&rsquo;s music is universal. We can try to imagine how people living in Kharkiv or Kyiv feel; I can understand why they&rsquo;re not performing Russian repertoire in a city under Russian bombs. But music goes far beyond any national culture. You see how Silvestrov plays with the styles of Schubert, Mozart, Tchaikovsky or Bach in his music; it&rsquo;s because he feels connected somehow to the spirit of these composers. I am so excited that we began this project before the war started, not simply because Silvestrov is in fashion &ndash; as he is now &ndash; but because we both so admire his music. He&rsquo;s a unique composer with his own language, but that language is universal.&nbsp;
Silvestrov has stated that music is always song, &ldquo;even if one cannot sing it&rdquo;. For him, music does not represent &ldquo;a philosophy or world-view&rdquo;; rather, he sees it as &ldquo;the musical testimony to life&rdquo;. His experience as a refugee (one who turns 85 in September) surely brings this idea into sharp focus&hellip;
Alexey Botvinov: It&rsquo;s not easy for him. He&rsquo;s an introvert. But when we met with Daniel in Berlin, I&rsquo;ve never seen him be more open. After this escape, he was full of emotion, full of anger. He talked to us and our concert audience very openly and with so much emotion. After he finished talking about the horrible things he had seen and this great exodus of people, he was transformed by what he played on the piano. I thought it would be something tragic. But he played this beautiful, dreamlike, positive piece. It was quite amazing!
One of the pieces on the album, Nostalghia (2001) for solo piano, is strikingly individual even by the measure of Silvestrov&rsquo;s mature music. It seems to evoke a longing for the place where the soul is at peace, whether home or heaven on earth.
Alexey Botvinov: I&rsquo;m in love with this music! It&rsquo;s a mixture of free jazz and meditation. Maybe it has some reference to Andrei Tarkovsky &ndash; but not to his film Nostalghia. Let&rsquo;s say Silvestrov, Arvo P&auml;rt, Tarkovsky, the filmmaker Sergei Parajanov belong to the same circle of ideas. To me this music&rsquo;s dreamy, hallucinatory quality has much in common with the best films of Tarkovsky.
Throughout his life Silvestrov has resisted the pressure to conform, whether in Soviet times or more recently, to match a certain idea of what a contemporary composer&rsquo;s music should sound like. It seems that speaking out or stepping out of line, something that is part of his nature, has become more dangerous in so many ways and places. Can you believe what we are witnessing in Ukraine, Russia and elsewhere today?
Daniel Hope: I live in Berlin, from where my Jewish grandparents were forcibly removed in the 1930s. I never thought I&rsquo;d find myself in a situation where one is witnessing similarities to those dark times. We have, amongst other things, this extraordinary situation where Holocaust survivors, now in their nineties, who had fled Germany to live in Ukraine after the Second World War, are coming back to Germany as refugees. And I never thought I would have to explain to my young children that a war is taking place on our doorstep.
&nbsp;
Alexey Botvinov: The fact that I am now an exile from Odessa is extraordinarily sad. The pain is so high. I will try to do my best to make music with the hope one day of returning home. I adore this city from so many sides &ndash; for its legendary music tradition and its legendary tradition of humour. For Russian speakers, Odessa is the capital of humour. I don&rsquo;t know when I will be able to return; nobody knows. It makes you feel very strange. The first concert I gave after the war began was very difficult. I thought, why am I doing this &ndash; it makes no sense. But music helps and I see that it makes sense like never before.
I have played many concerts since the war started, in Switzerland, Germany, Estonia, Italy. At every performance, some refugees from Ukraine have come to me. It&rsquo;s so emotional &ndash; they&rsquo;re in tears. They all say how important it is to feel this connection through music. Now, even more than in &ldquo;normal&rdquo; times, I feel how powerful music is for us all. That is what I hope people will feel when they listen to our Silvestrov recording.

Violinist Daniel Hope Explores America’s Rich Musical Heritage

Berlin-based violinist Daniel Hope&rsquo;s latest album takes a deep dive into the rich repertoire of American music, exploring its roots and distinctive qualities. &ldquo;We know a piece is from America the moment we hear it,&rdquo; says Hope. &ldquo;But what makes music sound American?&rdquo; Daniel Hope &ndash; America provides some answers, presenting works by composers as diverse as Leonard Bernstein, Sam Cooke, Aaron Copland, Duke Ellington, George Gershwin, Florence Price, Samuel A. Ward and Kurt Weill in outstanding new classical and jazz arrangements by Paul Bateman for solo violin in different combinations, with vocals, piano, jazz trio, string/chamber orchestra and percussion. The album is released&nbsp;today.
As on his recent recordings Hope and Belle Epoque, Daniel Hope is joined by the Z&uuml;rcher Kammerorchester, of which he has been Music Director since 2016. In addition, he welcomes an all-star line-up of guest artists, from German soul and R&amp;B singer Joy Denalane, Brazilian pianist Sylvia Thereza and German jazz guitarist Joscho Stephan to acclaimed American jazz pianist and composer Marcus Roberts and his trio, which also includes Rodney Jordan on bass and Jason Marsalis on drums.
Hope and Roberts have performed together on several occasions, setting creative sparks flying as hosts of a &ldquo;piano trio battle&rdquo; that pits Haydn, Ravel and Shostakovich against Thelonious Monk, Charlie Parker and Roberts himself. &ldquo;Usually the classical and jazz worlds don&rsquo;t really converge, but we managed to make it happen as a musical dialogue,&rdquo; says Hope. &ldquo;Now we&rsquo;re doing it again on this record.&rdquo;
He and Roberts are both committed to reviving compositions by African American composers and showing how their work helped make American music what it is today. &ldquo;One of the crucial things you learn as a musician is the ability to listen to someone else, and learn from them,&rdquo; says Roberts. &ldquo;So if we could actually take these people&rsquo;s music and figure out how and why it deserves recognition &ndash; not just because they were forgotten, but because there&rsquo;s a relevant message in their music from which we can still learn and benefit today &ndash; then that would be a great way to elevate them and ourselves as well.&rdquo;
Noting the way Dvoř&aacute;k stimulated an ongoing political debate more than a century ago, when he cited African American melodies as a source of inspiration, Hope has chosen here to include works by Florence Price, Duke Ellington and Sam Cooke, all of whom made their voices heard in an age of racial segregation and social injustice. As well as jazz, blues and classical music, the wide-ranging tracklist of Daniel Hope &ndash; America also features Broadway hits, American folk music and the songs that generations of migrants and refugees brought with them to the New World. Together these pieces help reveal the way American music gained its own unique sound.
The album opens with a Gershwin Song Suite, which includes such classics as &ldquo;Fascinating Rhythm&rdquo;, &ldquo;I&nbsp;Got Rhythm&rdquo; and, from the pioneering opera Porgy and Bess, &ldquo;Summertime&rdquo;. Sam Cooke&rsquo;s &ldquo;A Change Is Gonna Come&rdquo; (1964) recalls the singer-songwriter&rsquo;s role in the Civil Rights movement, while Florence Price&rsquo;s hauntingly beautiful Adoration shows why it was she who broke through barriers of race and gender to become the first African American woman to have her music performed by a major U.S. symphony orchestra. Other highlights of Hope&rsquo;s new release include &ldquo;Come Sunday&rdquo; from Duke Ellington&rsquo;s jazz suite Black, Brown and Beige, written for his band&rsquo;s Carnegie Hall debut in 1943; the &ldquo;Hoe-Down&rdquo; from Copland&rsquo;s ballet Rodeo, which celebrates the American West; and a suite of pieces by the German-Jewish composer Kurt Weill, who found refuge in America from Nazi persecution. Daniel Hope dedicates the album to his great-aunt, who, like Weill, escaped persecution in Germany and settled for the rest of her life in the United States. Four decades later, Hope&rsquo;s father, a writer, liberal publisher and opponent of the apartheid regime, fled South Africa for London.
Hope and the Z&uuml;rcher Kammerorchester will perform music from the album early next year on an eight-concert tour of Germany, opening on 1 February at Die Glocke in Bremen. Their itinerary also includes dates at Munich&rsquo;s Prinzregententheater (2 February), the NDR Sendesaal in Hanover (4 February), Konzerthaus Berlin (5 February), Staatstheater Braunschweig (6 February), Elbphilharmonie Hamburg (9&nbsp;February), Tonhalle D&uuml;sseldorf (11 February) and Frankfurt&rsquo;s Alte Oper (12 February).
Daniel Hope&rsquo;s work as musician, communicator and champion of humanitarian causes reaches far beyond the classical concert hall. In October 2021 he received the Opus KLASSIK jury&rsquo;s Special Achievement Award for his Hope@Home concerts: 150 events, livestreamed daily from his living room during the early months of the pandemic, which gave a platform to nearly 400 musicians. Described by Classic FM as &ldquo;one of the most charismatic violinists in the world&rdquo;, he became an exclusive Deutsche Grammophon artist in 2007. His award-winning discography comprises more than thirty albums. Hope served as Associate Artistic Director of the Savannah Music Festival from 2003 to 2019, sharing the post with Marcus Roberts. Today, as well as being Music Director of the Z&uuml;rcher Kammerorchester, he is also Artistic Director of San Francisco&rsquo;s New Century Chamber Orchestra, Artistic Director of the Frauenkirche church in Dresden and President of the Beethoven-Haus Bonn.

Daniel Hope’s tribute to Alfred Schnittke

F&uuml;r sein neues Album hat der Geiger Daniel Hope verschiedene Werke von Alfred Schnittke eingespielt. Das Album erscheint am 5. Februar, eine Vorbestellung ist ab sofort m&ouml;glich. Zudem gew&auml;hrt der Vorabtrack des Tangos aus der Filmmusik zu "Agony" einen ersten Einblick in Hopes Interpretation.

Daniel Hope&rsquo;s new album 'Schnittke - Works for Violin and Piano' is set for international release on 5 February 2021 and was recorded with Ukrainian pianist Alexey Botvinov, an acclaimed interpreter of the composer&rsquo;s works. The programme embraces everything from the immediately accessible Polka and Tango to the multi-layered Violin Sonata No.1, the work that first ignited Hope&rsquo;s passion for Schnittke&rsquo;s music.
Daniel Hope was fifteen when he first encountered the music of Alfred Schnittke in 1989. The experience launched a love affair with the Russian composer&rsquo;s work that has continued to deepen ever since. The violinist&rsquo;s latest album pays homage to this maverick genius, whose elegant explorations of past styles and free-thinking experiments in &ldquo;polystylism&rdquo; were both original and iconoclastic, at times bringing him into conflict with the Soviet authorities.
The album opens with Suite in the Old Style, five transcriptions of pieces written in the Baroque fashion, originally for various film scores. It is followed by Polka, inspired by Gogol&rsquo;s compelling short story &ldquo;The Overcoat&rdquo;, and Tango, written for Elem Klimov&rsquo;s 1981 film Agony. These colourful pieces preface the First Violin Sonata (1963), now among the most frequently performed works for violin and piano of modern times.
Newcomers to Schnittke&rsquo;s music are often surprised to discover the prominence given to the past in his compositions, sometimes subverted by the shock of the new, sometimes crafted in a style that Mozart might have recognised. Suite in the Old Style and Gratulationsrondo, a short work in honour of the violinist Rostislav Dubinsky, could easily pass for long-lost pieces from the eighteenth century.
&ldquo;Although both hark back to the past and celebrate Schnittke&rsquo;s love of &lsquo;pastiche&rsquo;, they are also a subjective reaction to the sounds of the early 1970s,&rdquo; Daniel Hope explains. &ldquo;His Suite in the Old Style reworks music from two of his film scores &ndash; Elem Klimov&rsquo;s comedy Adventures of a Dentist and a spoof documentary about, of all things, sport. The original version of the Suite was for violin and harpsichord, an instrument which appears to have been in the air of Soviet music.&rdquo;
Mieczysław Weinberg, the violinist adds, had scored a tremendous hit in 1969 with his music for the Russian cartoon version of Winnie-the-Pooh which, like Schnittke&rsquo;s Suite, used the harpsichord in a neo-Baroque fashion. &ldquo;Film music gave Schnittke a certain freedom to experiment with different idioms and to plant the seeds which would ultimately blossom into his concert works. He also admitted that by writing the Suite, he had fulfilled his wish &lsquo;once to write completely naively&rsquo;. But as always with Schnittke, there is more to it than meets the eye. And of the Gratulationsrondo he confessed to presenting us with &lsquo;corpses wearing make-up&rsquo;, a deeply unsettling notion.&rdquo;
There was room in Alfred Schnittke&rsquo;s art for great stylistic diversity and, increasingly in his later works, for contemplation of mankind&rsquo;s spiritual nature. The latter vein informs one of the highlights of Daniel Hope&rsquo;s album, the haunting Madrigal in memoriam Oleg Kagan for solo violin.
The composer&rsquo;s well-developed sense of irony, meanwhile, surfaces in the First Violin Sonata and is also present in the album&rsquo;s closing track, Stille Nacht (1978), an unnerving, spiky arrangement of a Christmas favourite that appears to suggest that the saccharine-sweet fiction of official propaganda was not matched by the grim reality of life under the Soviet r&eacute;gime.
&ldquo;I feel that there must have been a naturally rebellious streak in him,&rdquo; comments Daniel Hope, who got to know and work with Schnittke during a series of meetings and conversations in the early 1990s. &ldquo;He certainly displayed a wicked sense of humour,&rdquo; the violinist recalls. &ldquo;He once famously described his First Symphony, a work I also performed and am still fascinated by, as &lsquo;beginning like a circus and ending in an apocalyptic, terrifying way&rsquo;. Here again we see the extremes in his character and, ultimately, in his music. The other quote of his which I love and can relate to is: &lsquo;Good music cannot be created by good intentions.&rsquo;&rdquo;
Soon after Daniel Hope met Alfred Schnittke for the first time in 1992, he was invited to appear on a television show in Munich. Among his fellow guests was a former senior officer in the KGB with whom he shared a car ride to the airport after the programme finished. &ldquo;I realised I had a unique, 40‑minute opportunity to ask him things without him being able to leave,&rdquo; remembers Hope. &ldquo;Much to his visible discomfort, I bombarded him with questions about Rostropovich, Solzhenitsyn, Shostakovich and Schnittke. He did his best to brush off any criticism as the mere histrionics of an 18-year-old upstart (which indeed I was), but when we got to Schnittke, he poured disdain on him. I&rsquo;ll never forget what he said, sanctimoniously: &lsquo;Young man, the others were legends, celebrated Soviet Artists. Schnittke was nothing but a punk&rsquo;.&rdquo;
The former KGB man&rsquo;s dismissive attitude reflected received Soviet wisdom on a composer who drifted in and out of favour as cultural politics thawed, then chilled, then thawed again. Schnittke&rsquo;s public reputation rested more on the sixty-six film scores he wrote for state film companies than on his works for the concert hall, many of which were routinely condemned in official publications. Daniel Hope recalls how he, unlike the composer&rsquo;s Soviet critics, was immediately drawn to the ambivalence and stylistic diversity of the Violin Sonata No.1.
&ldquo;The First Sonata is a work of extremes,&rdquo; Hope observes, &ldquo;and I think that was part of what fascinated me. Each movement is like an encapsulation of a musical ideal: the first is Schnittke&rsquo;s own take on, and dislike of, serial music; the second revisits his obsession with folk music; the third brandishes a blatant quotation of Shostakovich&rsquo;s Piano Trio; and the finale presents his amalgamation of the Latin American &lsquo;La cucaracha&rsquo; theme with all of the previously gathered material. It&rsquo;s exhilarating both to perform and to listen to: the first time I heard it, back in 1989, I was listening to twentieth-century music with somewhat unblemished ears. Perhaps that provoked me even more.&rdquo;
Listen to the first pre-release track 'Schnittke: Tango from the music to the film &ldquo;Agony&rdquo;' now!

Daniel Hope – Christmas with Hope

Was w&auml;re die Adventszeit ohne weihnachtliche Musik? Daniel Hope und das Z&uuml;rcher Kammerorchester l&auml;uten mit vier neu arrangierten Weihnachtsliedern eine besinnliche Adventszeit ein.

With his new release, "Christmas with Hope", Daniel Hope gets us into the Christmas spirit. The violinist, supported by the Zurich Chamber Orchestra, presents four arrangements of classic Christmas carols for solo violin and strings. "There are few Christmas carols that hit you in the heart like White Christmas", Daniel Hope notes. In addition to this Christmas classic, Hope has recorded one of the most famous American Christmas songs "The Christmas Song" as well as "A Child is born" and "Maybe this Christmas". "Christmas with Hope" turns cold autumn days into magical pre-Christmas moments, reminiscent of cosy hours by the fireplace.
The EP is available to download and stream today, November 20th.

A Listening delight: Sarah Willis interviews Daniel Hope for the DG Podcast Series

Was macht ein Star-Geiger w&auml;hrend des Corona Lockdowns und warum spielt Sarah Willis auf einem Gartenschlauch? Eine neue Episode voller spannender Geschichten aus der Musikwelt.

How does a star violinist spend the Corona lockdown and why is Sarah Willis playing on a garden hose? Sit down comfortably with a cup of coffee, start the podcast and you&rsquo;ll have a big smile on your face within seconds as you listen to the tales that Sarah Willis and Daniel Hope exchange. The horn player and the violinist know each other well and not only share a love of music but also an excellent sense of humour. The new podcast episode of the two British musicians is unashamedly lively, one feels the artists&rsquo; mutual respect and can share in the fascinating details of a full-blooded artist&rsquo;s life that they describe. And of course following its recent release as an album, Daniel Hope describes the creation of his &lsquo;Hope@Home&rsquo; livestream, which he developed in cooperation with Arte, Deutsche Grammophon and many renowned fellow artists to brighten the lockdown for his fans.

Daniel Hope presents Hope@Home - The Album

Mit "Hope@Home" hat der Geiger Daniel Hope Konzerte aus seinem Wohnzimmer online in die ganze Welt gestreamt. Nun ver&ouml;ffentlicht die Deutsche Grammophon ausgew&auml;hlte Aufnahmen als Album.

&ldquo;Wouldn&rsquo;t it be possible to produce something at home that sounded just as good as in the concert hall?&rdquo; Idling the time away in his Berlin apartment during the cultural and social lockdowns was just as much out of the question for Daniel Hope as spontaneous home concerts with unsatisfactory cell phone sound: After all, according to the violinist, &ldquo;isn&rsquo;t classical music all about sound, about really listening?&rdquo; And so, with the support of the TV broadcaster ARTE, he developed a special concert format and transformed his living room into a high-tech TV studio.
The Hope@Home livestream project was born in a moment: a series of home concerts that were broadcast live on ARTE and on the Deutsche Grammophon YouTube channel and from which the label is now releasing highlights as an album. As if of its own accord, the wide-ranging program of this completely new approach took the form of the classic Berlin salon: &ldquo;The project offered me the opportunity to select chamber music from highly varied genres, for which I had not previously been able to find the ideal concert format for presenting them to a wider audience,&rdquo; says Daniel Hope. Hope@Home has changed that.
The result is an exciting and also magnificently performed collection of pieces for violin and piano, which range from Schubert&rsquo;s An die Musik and Rachmaninov&rsquo;s Vocalise to Mancini&rsquo;s Moon River or Weill&rsquo;s Lost in the Stars. And illustrious guests also provide variety: whether it is soul singer Joy Denalane, rapper Max Herre, actress Iris Berben, top trumpeter Till Br&ouml;nner or Max Raabe&nbsp; ̶&nbsp; they all enthusiastically accepted Daniel Hope&rsquo;s invitation to join forces with him musically. The pianist and composer Christoph Israel featured regularly from the very beginning: he accompanies the violinist on the piano in numerous works and contributed a number of excellent arrangements.
Hope@Home&nbsp; ̶&nbsp; that is a happy combination of artistic ability with spontaneity and directness. &ldquo;There was neither a script nor a producer telling me what to say or play. We just went straight in and improvised,&rdquo; Hope writes in the commentary he prepared for the album, which provides interesting background information on how this remarkable concert series came into being. The result is pure enjoyment: splendid, authentic and highly personal recordings from a musician&rsquo;s living room.

Hope@Home - Daniel Hope's final concert this Sunday May 3 features special guest Max Richter

Daniel Hope has been broadcasting his daily series of Hope@Home concerts in late March. This Sunday May 3 at 18.00 CET is set to be the final concert in this series, which he produced and broadcast in partnership with ARTE Concert and Deutsche Grammophon. Hope&rsquo;s special guest this Sunday is composer Max Richter with whom he memorably collaborated on the project &lsquo;Vivaldi Recomposed&rsquo;, where Max Richter recomposed Vivaldi&rsquo;s Four Seasons and both performed and recorded it together with Daniel Hope as the solo violinist.
Sunday&rsquo;s live stream will be streamed on Deutsche Grammophon&rsquo;s <a href="https://eur02.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Femail.deutschegrammophon.com%2Ft%2F53EL-AH08-2SA0UR-8D24X-1%2Fc.aspx&amp;data=02%7C01%7Crupert.wagg%40umusic.com%7C5585d39f13104f5740af08d7ed285da7%7Cbbcb6b2f8c7c4e2486e46c36fed00b78%7C1%7C0%7C637238629954813529&amp;sdata=0sKDmjnN%2FjSYVNl%2BYnA5GEQDuiXoNobC5M4BidQlvzE%3D&amp;reserved=0">YouTube</a> channel (and be available afterwards for 72 hours), as well as on the <a title="Urspr&uuml;ngliche URL:
https://email.deutschegrammophon.com/t/53EL-AH08-2SA0UR-8D24Y-1/c.aspx

Klicken Sie, um dem Link zu folgen." href="https://eur02.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Femail.deutschegrammophon.com%2Ft%2F53EL-AH08-2SA0UR-8D24Y-1%2Fc.aspx&amp;data=02%7C01%7Crupert.wagg%40umusic.com%7C5585d39f13104f5740af08d7ed285da7%7Cbbcb6b2f8c7c4e2486e46c36fed00b78%7C1%7C0%7C637238629954823525&amp;sdata=WR45BNwpwIyEtLCHDPsBz9p8NSN%2FUS4Xo61bsOvQ1gM%3D&amp;reserved=0">ARTE Concert website</a>, the <a title="Urspr&uuml;ngliche URL:
https://email.deutschegrammophon.com/t/53EL-AH08-2SA0UR-8D24Z-1/c.aspx

Klicken Sie, um dem Link zu folgen." href="https://eur02.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Femail.deutschegrammophon.com%2Ft%2F53EL-AH08-2SA0UR-8D24Z-1%2Fc.aspx&amp;data=02%7C01%7Crupert.wagg%40umusic.com%7C5585d39f13104f5740af08d7ed285da7%7Cbbcb6b2f8c7c4e2486e46c36fed00b78%7C1%7C0%7C637238629954823525&amp;sdata=ahpGoh0rW8kNTy40mU4rxiBp94rK%2FfyYuj249u2XGGg%3D&amp;reserved=0">ARTE Concert Facebook page</a> and the <a href="https://eur02.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Femail.deutschegrammophon.com%2Ft%2F53EL-AH08-2SA0UR-8D250-1%2Fc.aspx&amp;data=02%7C01%7Crupert.wagg%40umusic.com%7C5585d39f13104f5740af08d7ed285da7%7Cbbcb6b2f8c7c4e2486e46c36fed00b78%7C1%7C0%7C637238629954833519&amp;sdata=MSBOoOrbFSUpAFWCrFUwSrSv78uwEw4dlisUbP8rA4k%3D&amp;reserved=0">ARTE Concert YouTube channel</a>.

Hope@home - Daniel Hope launches daily livestream on DG YouTube and Arte Concert

Geiger Daniel Hope hat gemeinsam mit ARTE eine Konzertreihe "Hope@Home" entwickelt, die t&auml;glich um 18 Uhr ein Wohnzimmerkonzert des Star-Geigers &uuml;bertr&auml;gt &ndash; Live und zum Nachh&ouml;ren auf Arte Concert und dem DG YouTube Kanal.

This week Daniel Hope began a series of 14 daily concerts live from his living room called Hope@Home. In these troubled times Hope invites artists and friends to his home in Berlin to join him for spontaneous mini-concerts (of course one after the other and keeping the required safety distance). "We need to and must stay home at this time&rdquo;, says Hope. &ldquo;But we also need to share music as a source of comfort and inspiration."
&nbsp;
Hope@Home concerts will be live streamed daily on Deutsche Grammophon&rsquo;s <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6l70e8VHcys">YouTube channel</a> (and available for 72 hours), <a href="https://www.arte.tv/en/arte-concert/">ARTE Concert</a>, the <a href="https://de-de.facebook.com/ARTEConcert/">ARTE Concert Facebook page&nbsp;</a>and the <a href="https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC-smeLB9AnOTeypr1YyjJ3A">ARTE Concert YouTube channel</a>. Daniel Hope will recreate the magic of La Belle &Eacute;poque at home, with confirmed guests so far including Max Raabe, Christoph Israel, Katharina Thalbach, Sebastian Koch, Heike Makatsch.

Daniel Hope - Belle Epoque

Daniel Hope&rsquo;s new release,&nbsp;Belle &Eacute;poque, illuminates the creative output of pre-World War One Europe through music written in imperial France, Germany, Austria-Hungary, Great Britain and Russia.

Daniel Hope&rsquo;s new release,&nbsp;Belle &Eacute;poque, illuminates the creative output of pre-World War One Europe through music written in imperial France, Germany, Austria-Hungary, Great Britain and Russia. The album includes a recording of a new transcription of Chausson&rsquo;s Concerto in D major, a neglected masterpiece for violin, piano and string orchestra. Also&nbsp;Hope joins forces with his Z&uuml;rcher Kammerorchester and close friends in performances that reveal hidden depths of works by a wide range of composers including Debussy, Ravel, Elgar, Rachmaninov, Massenet, Berg and Schoenberg. The album 'Belle Epoque' is&nbsp;released internationally today.

Echoes of the Belle Époque

Daniel Hope&rsquo;s new release,&nbsp;Belle &Eacute;poque, illuminates the creative output of pre-World War One Europe through music written in imperial France, Germany, Austria-Hungary, Great Britain and Russia

<ul>
<li>Album includes a recording of a new transcription of Chausson&rsquo;s Concerto in D&nbsp;major, a neglected masterpiece for violin, piano and string orchestra</li>
<li>Hope joins forces with his Z&uuml;rcher Kammerorchester and close friends in performances that reveal hidden depths of works by a wide range of composers including Debussy, Ravel, Elgar, Rachmaninov, Massenet, Berg and Schoenberg</li>
<li>To be released internationally on 14 February 2020</li>
</ul>
&nbsp;
It was the age of the Lumi&egrave;re Brothers, Alexander Graham Bell, Karl Benz, the Wright Brothers and Louis Bl&eacute;riot, Marie Curie and Louis Pasteur &ndash; an age not unlike our own, marked by rapid scientific and technological development as well as intense literary, artistic and musical activity. The Belle &Eacute;poque, the period between the end of the Franco-Prussian War in 1871 and the outbreak of World War One in 1914, was a time of apparent peace and prosperity but with a darker reality of social and economic deprivation lying not far beneath its gilded surface. This era of creativity and contradiction has long fascinated Daniel Hope: &ldquo;I often wish I had a time machine to go back to the salons of Paris, indeed to that entire age,&rdquo; he says.
Belle &Eacute;poque&nbsp;&ndash; Hope&rsquo;s 17th recording for Deutsche Grammophon &ndash; offers a panoramic snapshot of the music that came out of this world, capturing its mix of late-Romantic, Impressionist and Modernist styles. The violinist&rsquo;s double album places popular repertoire by Massenet, Debussy and Elgar alongside rarely heard miniatures by Rachmaninov, Charles Koechlin, Frank Bridge and members of the Second Viennese School.
&ldquo;It was a time when people started to question the very idea of art,&rdquo; Hope explains. &ldquo;Where did it come from, what was it allowed to say, what were its values and what should or could it express?&rdquo; Composers, while still drawing on models from the past, were experimenting with new techniques and sonorities and, as time went on, began to reflect the underlying tensions of a world that was about to be swept away by war.
At the heart of the album is Ernest Chausson&rsquo;s Concerto in D major for violin, piano and string quartet, a little-known yet compelling work recorded here in a new transcription for the two soloists with an increased string orchestra. Hope is joined by members of the Z&uuml;rcher Kammerorchester, of which he has been Music Director since 2016, and pianist Lise de la Salle. &ldquo;I find the piece encapsulates so much of that period,&rdquo; he comments, &ldquo;the sensual tonality and yet this deep, almost nostalgic desire to revisit one&rsquo;s past.&rdquo;
Belle &Eacute;poque&nbsp;features several other orchestral works including arrangements of Debussy&rsquo;s&nbsp;R&ecirc;verie&nbsp;and the &ldquo;M&eacute;ditation&rdquo; from Massenet&rsquo;s opera&nbsp;Tha&iuml;s, Schoenberg&rsquo;s nostalgic&nbsp;Notturno&nbsp;for violin, harp and strings, and Elgar&rsquo;s exhilarating&nbsp;Introduction and Allegro&nbsp;for string quartet and orchestra. Daniel Hope also directs the Z&uuml;rcher Kammerorchester and soprano Mojca Erdmann in Richard Strauss&rsquo;s song&nbsp;Morgen!, a reflection on the bliss of true love.
&ldquo;I wanted the album to reflect what was happening throughout Europe: Art Nouveau, Secession, Jugendstil&rdquo;, Hope says. &ldquo;These related trends were understood as a rejection of the traditional forms of the nineteenth-century &lsquo;Gr&uuml;nderzeit&rsquo;. A fresh, sensual art was to emerge, adhering closely to nature as a model and at the same time able to give visual expression to deep, concealed emotional states.&rdquo;
Partnered by pianist Simon Crawford-Phillips, Daniel Hope also explores the extraordinarily rich resource of Belle &Eacute;poque chamber music. A sense of yearning for the certainties of the past flows through &ldquo;Romance&rdquo;, one of two salon pieces for violin and piano composed by the young Rachmaninov, while the pursuit of the new can be heard in the sounds and silences of Webern&rsquo;s Four Pieces Op.7 (1910-14). Hope and Crawford-Phillips are joined by Stefan Dohr, principal horn of the Berliner Philharmoniker, in Charles Koechlin&rsquo;s Four Little Pieces for horn, violin and piano Op.32, and their chamber repertoire also takes in Hahn&rsquo;s Bach-inspired&nbsp;&Agrave;&nbsp;Chloris, Kreisler&rsquo;s evergreen&nbsp;Liebesleid&nbsp;and pieces by Berg, Schoenberg, Zemlinsky and Enescu, as well as lesser-known gems by Faur&eacute;, Paul Juon, Bridge and Ravel.
Dissatisfied with what is now known as the&nbsp;Sonate posthume, Ravel suppressed the score. In fact the sonata, like so much of the music of the Belle &Eacute;poque, looks to the past and future at once, to striking effect, with its haunting lyricism and unexpected harmonic shifts. &ldquo;I&rsquo;m aware that some people say Ravel was so exact and that he buried certain pieces and didn&rsquo;t want them discovered or performed,&rdquo; says Hope. &ldquo;Nonetheless, I find the piece, just on the cusp of the new century, an exact and very moving representation of what Belle &Eacute;poque stands for.&rdquo;
Daniel Hope is performing extensively in the first half of 2020, with concerts in France, Germany, Switzerland, the UK, Ukraine and the US. He and the Z&uuml;rcher Kammerorchester will perform repertoire from&nbsp;Belle &Eacute;poque&nbsp;at concerts on tour in Germany in the spring.

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Title

Daniel Hope &middot; Alina Pronina Vitalii Kyianytsia &middot; Roman Fediurko

BORN IN UKRAINE Daniel Hope

Born in Ukraine

150 Years of Ukrainian Music
Works by Silvestrov &middot; Shor &middot; Lyatoshynsky Lysenko &middot; Leontovych &middot; Kyianytsia Bortkiewicz &middot; Stepovy

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With his upcoming album Born in Ukraine, Daniel Hope presents a personal tribute to the country and a journey through 150 years of Ukrainian musical history, rooted in his own longstanding connection to Ukraine.&nbsp;
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From the pioneering voices of Mykola Lysenko, Yakiv Stepovy and Borys Lyatoshynsky to Sergei Bortkiewicz, Mykola Leontovych and Valentin Silvestrov, as well as composers writing today, the album brings together familiar melodies and rarely heard works. Hope is joined by the young Ukrainian pianists Alina Pronina, Roman Fediurko and Vitalii Kyianytsia, together exploring music shaped by memory and displacement, belonging and renewal.&nbsp;
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The full album will be released digitally and on CD on 13 November. Pre-order the CD edition in the<a href="https://store.deutschegrammophon.com/collections/daniel-hope"> DG Store.</a>
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Listen to a second pre-release track, an expressive rendition of Silvestrov&rsquo;s 5 Pieces: No. 1, Elegie.
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Daniel Hope - News | Deutsche Grammophon

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