Dear members of the Society of Friends,
After a long and hot summer, a new season is approaching for DR's choirs and orchestras. Most of the musicians and singers are already in their work clothes, and so are all of us working behind the scenes.
Already on Saturday 11 August, the DR Symphony Orchestra kicks off the season with the big DR Palace Concert in Ledreborg Palace Park - followed by three concerts entitled Gaming in Symphony in the DR Concert Hall. At the end of the month, the orchestra will travel with Fabio Luisi to the Grafenegg Festival in Austria, where we will play a great programme of works by Bent Sørensen, Carl Nielsen and Beethoven.
When the DR Symphony Orchestra's ”real” classical concert season kicks off on 30 August, it will be with Nielsen's famous 4th Symphony - full of energy, raw power and vitality. Throughout the
Throughout the new season, the powerful forces of music, which can have a special, redemptive and liberating effect on us humans, are roaring. And in just over a month, we can celebrate the 85th anniversary of the Danish National Symphony Orchestra's popular Thursday Concerts - a beacon in Danish musical life and a tradition that is alive and well in our modern times.
For the DR VokalEnsemblet, the new concert season begins on Tuesday 21 August with the award-winning musical tale Nightingale, with Ghita Nørby as narrator and Michala Petri as recorder soloist. Later in the season, the DR VokalEnsemblet invites you on a journey through the new European nations that dreamed of a brighter future in the last century. The choir also embarks on a musical pilgrimage to the holiest places in our culture, and with special meditation concerts in the Church of Our Lady and Roskilde Cathedral, the singers invite you into a quiet inner world where music invites you to peace, presence and contemplation.
DR Big Band doesn't open their season until October, but this year the band will also be busy in August, when they open the Tønder Festival and fire up the Cultural Meeting on Mors. In addition to the high-profile concerts at DR Koncerthuset, the band will embark on several tours around the country, where both young Nordic stars and big international names - from Danish Sinne Eeg and Mathias Heise to Brazilian Eliane Elias and American Branford Marsalis - will stop by as guest artists.
Last but not least, this autumn we can celebrate the 80th anniversary of DR PigeKoret. Today, the choir is sharper than ever with Phillip Faber at the helm and with HRH Crown Princess Mary as the new royal patron. In addition to the choir's fantastic sense of the Danish songbook, which flows through all the season's concerts, it is now clear that DR PigeKoret represents some of our strongest Danish values such as unity, community and the will to renew tradition in a gentle way. With DR Korskolen as musical partners and recruitment base, DR PigeKoret is strongly equipped for the next 80 years - and preferably longer!
Thank you for your continued support of the Friends of DR's Choirs and Orchestras. I hope you enjoy following all the ensembles throughout the season. We look forward to seeing you and sharing the music with you.
Have a great time!
Kim Bohr