The InterHarmony International Music Festival is a summer Music Festival in Germany and Italy. The Festival is an annual intensive summer performance festival, which includes a concert series of international solo musicians and young performers, and an institute for students of solo, chamber music, and orchestral playing. The festival hosts three sessions in two locations: Acqui Terme, in the Province of Alessandria in Piedmont, Italy, and Sulzbach-Rosenberg, Germany in Bavaria.
The InterHarmony International Music Festival was conceived in 1997, when cellist Misha Quint, the Music Director and Founder, started his first International Music Festival in Blonay, Switzerland. This festival, the Intensive Cello Studies Abroad, was held at the Hindemith Foundation in Chalet de lacroix. Quint then opened the Soesterberg International Music Festival in Soesterberg, Netherlands in 1998. [1] His festival in the Netherlands was a success and lasted for nine years. In the midst of the location in Soesterberg in 2000, the name, "InterHarmony", was born.
The Festival in 2000 in Geneva, Switzerland was the first to bear this name. Other locations later took it up. Some locations, such as Soesterberg and Sulzbach-Rosenberg also retained the location name within the city as a subsidiary of InterHarmony. The Sulzbach-Rosenberg location of InterHarmony opened in 2005 and was an immediate success with local audiences. The Hinterzarten, Germany locale in the Black Forest lasted from 2008 – 2011. There were two locations in the United States: The Berkshires, Massachusetts from 2007- 2008, and San Francisco, California, at San Francisco State University in 2009. [2] [3]
InterHarmony remains one of the only festivals of its kind to move around the world. Many students and artists-in-residence end up traveling to all the locations, and in the case of 2012, spending nearly six weeks at the festivals. [4]
The Festival has gained renown in Germany and brings international culture and artistry to its locations. For example, The U.S. Consul General spoke at the final concert where Misha Quint performed in 2008, and a Young Artist Showcase was given in the offices of the German Consulate in New York City in 2012. [5] [6] In 2010, Caitlin Hulcup, a soloist from the Vienna Staatsoper, and Christa Mayer from the Bayreuther Festspiele, performed with the InterHarmony Festival Orchestra and the Forchheimer Kammerorchester, a Symphony Orchestra in Germany. [7] [8] [9] [10] [11]
In 2015 InterHarmony International Music Festival opened the InterHarmony Concert Series with three concerts at the Weill Recital Hall at Carnegie Hall in New York City each year. The series showcases artist performers and advanced young artists who have previously performed at InterHarmony International Music Festivals in Europe. [12]
In 2015 InterHarmony International Music Festival opened the InterHarmony Outstanding Guest Artist Series in its sessions in Italy and Germany. Famous musicians are invited to perform and give a master class to young artists. In 2015 the guest artists were violinist Vadim Repin and pianist Bruno Canino in Italy, and pianist Alfred Brendel gave a lecture in Sulzbach-Rosenberg, Germany. The 2017 guest artists were Nikolaj Znaider, Vadim Repin, Shlomo Mintz, Bruno Canino, Alfred Brendel, Christa Mayer, and Boris Kuschnir. In 2018, guest artists were the conductors Gerard Korsten, Christian Vasquez, and Nicoletta Conti, pianist Alfred Brendel, and violinists Nikolaj Znaider, Sergey Khachatryan, Boris Kuschnir, and mezzo-soprano Christa Mayer. The 2019 guest artists included Dmitry Sitkovetsky, Saleem Ashkar, Alfred Brendel, Guy Braunstein, Alexei Volodin, Boris Kuschnir, Lubov Stuchevskaya, Nikolaj Znaider, Christa Mayer, and Christian Vásquez. [13] [14]
Each session of InterHarmony has at least forty guest artists. Previous guest artist faculty have included the following performers:
The Kopelman Quartet is a Russian string quartet founded in 2002 by Mikhail Kopelman (violin), Boris Kuschnir (violin), Igor Sulyga (viola) and Mikhail Milman (cello). They studied at the Moscow Conservatory in the 1970s, but pursued individual careers for twenty-five years before founding the quartet.
Vadim Viktorovich Repin is a Russian and Belgian violinist who lives in Vienna.
Erich Wolfgang Korngold composed his Violin Concerto in D major, Op. 35, in 1945.
Gilad Karni is an Israeli violist who has played in the New York Philharmonic and is currently principal viola in the Tonhalle Orchestra Zurich as well as a soloist and player in chamber ensembles. A founder member of the Huberman Quartet, with which he made his debut at Carnegie Hall, he has since appeared there with the Guarneri Quartet.
Nikolaj Szeps-Znaider is a Danish violinist and conductor.
Sulzbach-Rosenberg is a municipality in the Amberg-Sulzbach district, in Bavaria, Germany. It is situated approximately 14 km northwest of Amberg, and 50 km east of Nuremberg. The town consists of two parts: Sulzbach in the west, and Rosenberg in the east.
Julian Rachlin is a Lithuanian-born violinist, violist and conductor.
Augustin Hadelich is an Italian-German-American Grammy-winning classical violinist.
The Yehudi Menuhin International Competition for Young Violinists is an international music competition for violinists under the age of 22. It was founded by Yehudi Menuhin in 1983 with the goal of nurturing young violinists. In its early years, the competition took place in Folkestone on the south coast of England. Since 1998, it has been held biennially in different cities around the world. Several of the competition's past laureates, including Julia Fischer, Tasmin Little, and Nikolaj Znaider, have gone on to major international careers.
Dmitry Yulianovich Sitkovetsky is a Soviet-Russian born classical violinist, conductor and arranger, most notably of an arrangement for strings of J. S. Bach's Goldberg Variations.
Daniel Gortler is an Israeli pianist and pedagogue.
Svetlana Smolina is a Concert pianist.
Misha Quint is a Russian-born classical cellist and music director.
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Christa Mayer is a German operatic mezzo-soprano. She is particularly known for her portrayal of Erda in Richard Wagner's Ring Cycle; a role which she has performed several times at the Bayreuth Festival and recorded on the BBC Legends Record Label.
Svetlana Gorokhovich is a pianist and recording musician.
Vanessa Benelli Mosell is an Italian pianist and conductor.
Boris Kuschnir is a Ukrainian-born Austrian violinist and academic.
Nikolay Madoyan is an Armenian virtuoso violinist. Madoyan's continuous performance of 59 world classics of different styles and epochs, for more than 33 hours, has been entered in the Guinness World Records book as an “Officially Amazing” achievement.
InterHarmony International School of Music is the first online classical music conservatory offering year-round classical music training programs, including private lessons on all musical instruments, Master Classes, recitals, classes in music theory, solfège, and other subjects to students of all ages and levels. The program was created by Russian-born, American cello soloist Misha Quint, who also founded the InterHarmony International Music Festival.