International Students' Chamber Music Festival
Music University of Stuttgart

20^th - 22^nd of April 2010

The International Students' Chamber Music Festival looks back on a very long, solid tradition. It also looks back on a thoroughgoing metamorphosis. What was initialised in 1966 as inter-republican piano trio competition, designed to take place in Estonia, became several years later, in 1975, a student chamber music festival. And what was meant to be a festival of the Baltic countries, expanded soon after the political events in the early 90's beyond the geographical borders of the three countries. Though still a project of the Baltic countries the festival took place in some of the following years in Helsinki (1993), Berlin (1995) and Stockholm (1998). Starting with 1995 master classes enriched the programme and the number of invited guests grew up. After participating as guest at the previous editions of the festival in Vilnius and Riga, the Stuttgart University of Music and Performing Arts is happy this year to change the roles and be host and organizer , which will perform of the festival. Our guests this year will be the three Baltic music academies of Tallinn, Riga and Vilnius as well as the music academies of Oslo and Lausanne.

In a world which is dominated by many contests and fierce competition this festival gives the young musicians an occasion to show their talent in a relaxed and friendly atmosphere. Not the high-performance is the key word but the shared joy of playing together in an ensemble. The students will also have the opportunity to enrich their knowledge in master classes, to change opinions with colleagues and musicians form other countries, to visit a beautiful city and its wonderful surroundings, to learn about the culture of the host land and - who knows - maybe to make new lasting friendships.

The Festival opens on the 20^th of April and lasts three days, until the 22^nd. Master classes will take place in the morning and in the afternoon, followed by a concert on each of the three evenings. The opening and the closing concert will be followed by a reception so as to give the participants - students, teachers and organizers as well - the chance to know each other better. Various chamber ensembles from six music academies (Riga, Tallinn, Vilnius, Oslo, Lausanne and Stuttgart) will participate to the three concerts.

The first concert will be opened by the brass band of the Music University of Stuttgart, City Brass Stuttgart, performing La Péri by Paul Dukas. The ensemble consists of professors and their students or graduates from the music university, all of them successful musicians who hold or have held soloists positions in the best symphonic orchestras of Germany.

The final concert will be closed with the Septett Op. 20 in Es Major by Ludwig van Beethoven. The ensemble will consist of students from all the six participating music academies.

Following teachers will lead the master classes: Marje Lohuaru (piano, Tallinn), Gunta Sproģe and Herta Hansena (piano, Riga), Dalia Balsytė (piano, Vilnius), Vebjørn Anvik (piano, Oslo), Gunars Larsens (violine, Lausanne), Anke Dill (violine, Stuttgart) and Conradin Brotbek (cello, Stuttgart). Two main tendencies are to be observed at the programmes submitted by the students: a strong interest for contemporary music (Denisov, Tüür, Vainiūnas, Boutry, Plakidis, Kokkonen) counterbalanced by an equally strong interest for the romantic music (Grieg, Brahms, Tschaikowski, Schubert, etc). Practically the programme of each performing ensemble will consist of a romantic and a contemporary work.