Early Music
Dear friends of the Neuburg Summer Academy, dear early music enthusiasts!
The old town of Neuburg with its Renaissance and Baroque monuments will once again provide the summery ambience for the early music courses this year. The summer academy continues the tradition of the great importance that music played in the former Principality of Palatinate-Neuburg by inviting important musicians from the early music scene to courses and concerts every year. We are very pleased to be able to present you with a new edition of our early music courses in beautiful Neuburg an der Donau in August 2025 and would like to invite you to take part in the courses and to attend our concerts and events. In 2024 we focused on the baroque repertoire of the 18th century and in 2025 we will focus on the repertoire of the 16th and 17th centuries with corresponding offers of instrumental and vocal courses, lots of ensemble work and finally concerts that will take place at the various locations in Neuburg's historic city center that have been created for this purpose. In the summer academy we will particularly devote ourselves to music in the environment of Count Palatine Ottheinrich at the Neuburg court and the Munich court of this period.
This year we were again able to attract outstanding, internationally renowned lecturers for the master classes: Emma Kirkby (vocals), Bernhard Forck (violin), Friederike Heumann (viola da gamba), N.N. (violoncello), Han Tol (recorder), Josue Melendez (cornet), Catherine Motuz (trombone) and Julian Behr (lute). Gerhard Abe-Graf and Daniela Niedhammer will support us as accompanists on harpsichord and organ.
Our wonderful team will present a varied baroque program at the lecturers' concert on August 12th in the Congregation Hall. On August 14th, the Neuburg audience is invited to listen to the young ensembles at the final of the international Biagio Marini competition in the Congregation Hall and then vote on the audience award. The competition, which is one of the very few for young ensembles, celebrated its 25th anniversary last year. On August 15th, we will continue our "Jour fixe" concerts in the castle chapel and in the castle courtyard, which are an opportunity for the Neuburg audience to hear beautiful music in a relaxed atmosphere and to come into contact with the musicians. On August 16th, the participants will then present the results of our intensive work in the academy at the festive closing concert in the Court Church.
Looking forward to an intensive week with a variety of encounters in summery Neuburg, warm greetings from
Prof. Dr. Georg Brunner Artistic Director of Early Music General
information about the courses:
The courses are aimed at professional musicians, music students, music school teachers, school musicians and advanced music students who want to gain experience in historically informed performance practice. In the mornings, individual lessons take place in the respective classes, while in the afternoons chamber music works in various ensembles are rehearsed with the lecturers. Notes on chamber music: The pitch for the ensemble works will be 415 Hz. Instruments with other pitches can also be brought along for individual lessons
Each student arrives with their own history, profile and preferences and my initial aim is to accommodate the wishes of each individual. At the same time I encourage a broader experience of the „unfamiliar“ - instruments of different tunings, varying historical bows, etc. - in order to approach the historical context of bass instrument players of the Baroque era, where „adaptability“ was the order of the day.
In addition to the opportunity to participate in a class Bass Consort, an informed and practical approach to the Basso Continuo role of the Violone and Contrabass in Baroque music will of course provide an essential element to the class programme.
Daniela Niedhammer studied harpsichord/bass continuo and organ at the Schola Cantorum Basiliensis in Basel. Before that, she completed a harpsichord degree and a church music training (A-diploma) at the Munich University of Music and Theater. Her teachers include Christine Schornsheim, Jesper Christensen, Andreas Staier, Lorenzo Ghielmi and Edgar Krapp. She studied choir conducting with Markus Utz and Michael Gläser.
Catherine Motuz is from Ottawa, Canada, and studied historical trombone with Charles Toet at the Schola Cantorum Basiliensis from 2004 to 2011. As a researcher, her main interests are historical improvisation pedagogy and ideas about musical expression and aesthetics in the 16th century.
Both as solo artist and as continuo player he performs on festivals in most European countries and in South America, inter alia, with “Capricornus Consort Basel”, “Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin”, “Al Ayre Espagnol”, “Passions de L’Ame”, “B’Rock” and with altos Franz Vitzthum and Andreas Scholl, sopranos Maria Cristina Kiehr and Hana Blazikova and tenor David Munderloh.
