Michael Herrmann (born 4 February 1944) is a German culture and music administrator. He founded the Rheingau Musik Festival in 1987 and is its Artistic Director and Chief Executive Officer. He also runs a concert agency in the Frankfurt Alte Oper, the Pro Arte Konzertdirektion, and started an agency for concerts in the Kurhaus Wiesbaden in 2019, Wiesbaden Musik, beginning with a concert on his 75th birthday.
Herrmann was born in Wiesbaden where he grew up. When Herrmann announced in 2011 the first concert of the Rheingau Musik Festival's annual composer's portrait, featuring Hans Zender, he recalled that he was an altar boy at the church in Wiesbaden where Zender was the organist. In the 1960s, Herrmann attended the Pablo Casals Festival in Prades three times.[1][2] Meeting important chamber musicians there, later singing in choral concerts in Eberbach Abbey in the early 1970s, inspired the idea of a music festival in the Rheingau, using the many culturally interesting venues of the area.[3]
The founders created an association which ran the festival until 1992,[4] and has continued to support the festival.[5] In 2010, it had 3300 members. Herrmann won sponsors who choose to fund concerts of their choice.[2] It is normal for him to contact three to four sponsors a day. 180 companies have sponsored the festival.[1] About half of the budget is funded by the sponsors and the remainder by ticket sales.[6] Herrmann was successful in keeping the festival independent of public funding, but the minister-president of Hesse is traditionally its patron. Since 1992 the festival has been run by a GmbH (company with limited liability), with Herrmann as partner and managing director (Gesellschafter und Geschäftsführer). The festival has grown from 19 concerts in the two months of the first season to an average of 150 events each season,[2] many of them in the Rheingau's vineyards and historical buildings, making the festival "one of the largest in Europe".[7] Herrmann made the festival a member of the European Festivals Association and serves as the association's vice president.[6]
The program is mostly dedicated to classical music, but also features cabaret, jazz, readings, musical cruises, children's concerts, wine tastings and culinary events with music. It is regularly opened by a symphony concert in Eberbach Abbey, broadcast live by Hessischer Rundfunk.[8] Anniversaries of composers are celebrated, such as Giuseppe Verdi ("Viva Verdi") in 2001,[9] and Franz Liszt and Gustav Mahler in 2011.[10] Every year it has a theme, such as "Heimweh" in 2011. "Treffpunkt Jugend" (meeting point youth) presents soloists still in their teens in two marathon concerts of chamber music and concertos with orchestra. Work cycles, running over several years, have included the piano sonatas of Ludwig van Beethoven, played by Rudolf Buchbinder, and the symphonies of Anton Bruckner, with the WDR Symphony Orchestra Cologne and Eliahu Inbal.[11] "Rendezvous" shows artists in dialogue. In the Rheingau, a traditionally Catholic region, the feast of the Assumption is celebrated on 15 August by a Marienvesper (Vespers for the Virgin Mary). In 2011 the Concerto Romano ensemble, conducted by Alessandro Quarta, performed a medley of works by composers from Rome. On this occasion, Herrmann asked for an exceptional collection to benefit his guest of honor, bishop Ambroise of the diocese of Maradi in Niger.[12][13] Organ concert on the historic instruments of the region are featured regularly. "Komponistenporträt" features annually a living composer in conversation, chamber music and symphonic music.
In the 25th anniversary season, he invited several of his long-term friend, called "Wegbegleiter" ("Companions along the way"), to appear again.[18][19] In 2013, 160 events were offered at 45 locations, with a budget of 7,6 million Euro.[20]
Andreas Scholl is a German countertenor, a male classical singer in the alto vocal range, specialising in Baroque music.
The Lutherkirche is one of four main Protestant churches in Wiesbaden, the capital of Hesse, Germany. It was built between 1908 and 1910 in Jugendstil and in accordance with the Wiesbadener Programm, to a design by Friedrich Pützer. With two organs and good acoustics, it is also a concert venue.
Klaus Mertens is a German bass and bass-baritone singer who is known especially for his interpretation of the complete works of Johann Sebastian Bach for bass voice.
The Rheingau Musik Festival (RMF) is an international summer music festival in Germany, founded in 1987. It is mostly for classical music, but includes other genres. Concerts take place at culturally important locations, such as Eberbach Abbey and Schloss Johannisberg, in the wine-growing Rheingau region between Wiesbaden and Lorch.
Dorothee Mields is a German soprano concert singer of Baroque and contemporary music.
Walter Fink was a German entrepreneur and a patron of contemporary classical music. He is known for being a founding member, executive committee member and sponsor of the Rheingau Musik Festival, where he initiated a series of annual portraits of international composers of contemporary classical music.
Ignace Michiels is a Belgian organist, choral conductor and organ teacher. He is internationally known as a concert organist.
Werner Güra is a German classical tenor in opera, concert and Lied, also an academic teacher in Zurich.
Gabriel Dessauer is a German cantor, concert organist, and academic teacher. After studies with Diethard Hellmann and Franz Lehrndorfer, he was responsible for the church music at St. Bonifatius, Wiesbaden from 1981 to 2021, conducting the Chor von St. Bonifatius until 2018. Besides normal church services, he conducted them in regular masses with soloists and orchestra for Christmas and Easter and a yearly concert. In 1995 he prepared the choir for a memorial concert commemorating the 50th anniversary of the end of World War II, performing Britten's War Requiem with choirs from countries involved in the war, and concerts in Wiesbaden and Macon, Georgia. Programs of choral concerts included Hermann Suter's Le Laudi in 1998, the German premiere of Rutter's Mass of the Children in 2004, and the world premiere of Colin Mawby's Bonifatiusmess in 2012 which he had commissioned for the choir's 150th anniversary. The concert of 2008, Vivaldi's Gloria and Haydn's Nelson Mass, was also performed at San Paolo dentro le Mura in Rome.
The Unionskirche is the active Protestant parish church of Idstein, a town in the Rheingau-Taunus district in the German state of Hesse. Idstein was a residence of the counts of Nassau. The church building in the center of the historic Altstadt dates back to the 14th century when it was built as a collegiate church. It became Lutheran during the Reformation. Its interior was adapted in the 17th century to become a Lutheran Predigt- und Hofkirche. The most prominent decoration in the church is the series of 38 paintings by the Flemish painter Michael Angelo Immenraedt, an exponent of Flemish Baroque painting, and others. They follow a program of biblical scenes.
Anthony & Joseph Paratore is an internationally known classical piano duo, formed by the brothers Anthony Paratore and Joseph Paratore. The pianists have performed and recorded most of the classical repertoire for two pianos and four-hand piano, including works with orchestra and arrangements of works for orchestra. In the field of jazz they have collaborated with Dave Brubeck.
Wolfgang Katschner is a German lutenist and conductor. He is director of the ensembles Capella Angelica and Lautten Compagney which specialise in Baroque music—notably the operas of Handel.
lautten compagney BERLIN is a German instrumental ensemble based in Berlin. Founded in 1984 by Hans-Werner Apel and Wolfgang Katschner, now the principal conductor, it specializes in early music and Baroque music, notably the operas of Handel.
Georg Poplutz is a German tenor, a soloist in Baroque music, opera and oratorio, and a Lied singer. He has been a member of vocal ensembles such as Johann Rosenmüller Ensemble and Cantus Cölln, and has participated in a project to record the complete works of Heinrich Schütz.
Rheingauer Kantorei, now Neue Rheingauer Kantorei, is a mixed choir of the Rheingau region in Germany, performing mostly sacred music in services and concerts.
Markus Schäfer is a German lyric tenor, a soloist in opera, oratorio, and Lied. He has performed with major opera houses and with the ensemble La Petite Bande. He has been a professor of voice at the Musikhochschule Hannover.
Frank Stähle was a German musician, a choral conductor and the director of Dr. Hoch's Konservatorium in Frankfurt from 1979 to 2007.
Tamar Halperin is an Israeli harpsichordist, pianist and musicologist. She has played Baroque music in historically informed performance, but also classical repertory and jazz with a big band.
St. Jakobus is a Catholic church and a former parish in Rüdesheim am Rhein, Hesse, Germany. It dates back to the 10th century, was expanded around 1400, and again in 1913/14. The church was severely damaged by bombing in World War II, and rebuilt from 1947 to 1956. It is a listed historic monument and serves also as a concert venue.
Claus Friedrich Wisser was a German businessman and philanthropist, a patron of music and the arts. He was head of the service company Wisag which he founded, and was chairman of its supervisory board since 2011, and honorary chairman of that board from 2022.
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