April 9 marks the beginning of the SPRING FEVER FESTIVAL, the next instalment in Kristjan Järvi and the MDR Leipzig Radio Symphony Orchestra’s classical programming revolution: four in-season music festivals. These events pack 8-10 concerts into 10-15 days, showcasing well-known, and newly discovered guest artists, composers-in-residence and venues all around the city recently dubbed ‘Hypezig’.
Spring Fever Festival is the third of the four ‘Nordic’ celebrations curated by Kristjan Järvi, who is renowned for his innovative collaborations and inventive programming, with the final ‘Mid-Summer Festival’ taking place at the end of June. The two previous festivals, ‘Northern Lights’ and ‘ICE’, were an unparalleled success, bringing new audiences to the concert hall and taking classical music (and classical-hip-hop-folk-beatbox collaborations….) to new audiences throughout the city of Leipzig.
The usual degustation of musical genres and contemporary artists will be on offer, including a Swedish Drum & Bass piano concerto by Karl McFaul, a concerto for turntables and orchestra by Gabriel Prokofiev (the grandson of Sergei Prokofiev), and the creative collaborations of contemporary composer Krzysztof Penderecki and Radiohead’s Jonny Greenwood. Beethoven, Sibelius, Jonsí, Stenhammar, Stravinsky, Holst and Strauss will also join the Nordic journey, as well as featured artists Swedish pianist Per Tengstrand, Ole Edvard Antonsen and his Band, Birmingham based DJ ‘Mr. Switch’ and of course MDR Artist in Residence: Hauschka.