The Anhaltische Philharmonie Dessau receives an award

The Anhaltische Philharmonie Dessau is awarded for “Best Concert Programme of the 2022/2023 Season”.

With the renowned industry award for the best season programme in the German orchestral landscape, the Deutscher Musikverleger-Verband e.V. (DMV) honours the Anhaltische Philharmonie for an outstanding annual programme that enthusiastically combines classical masterpieces with new discoveries from the Romantic and Modern eras. The award ceremony will take place on 2 March as part of the 5th symphony concert with pianist Eka Bokuchava in the Great House of the Anhaltisches Theater Dessau.

General Director Johannes Weigand: “The Anhalt Philharmonic Orchestra is the foundation of the entire cultural life of our region. Its musicians have a deep impact on the city’s society. First of all, of course, in the symphonic concert programmes and theatre performances, but also in schools and day-care centres, as teachers or in unimaginably varied chamber music programmes. Conversely, a concert season like the one awarded here would be impossible without the region’s infinitely rich cultural heritage, which inspires the programme again and again, be it Bauhaus and the Garden Kingdom, be it Kurt Weill or Moses Mendelssohn, be it the tradition of the Reformation through Martin Luther or the early preoccupation with Richard Wagner in the 19th century. Great congratulations to the dramaturgy and artistic direction of the orchestra, but especially of course to the musicians of the Philharmonie!”

The prize “Best Concert Programme of the Season” has been awarded by the DMV since 1991. The prize is awarded to concert programmes of German orchestras that have distinguished themselves through special creativity and diversity in the past concert season. The consideration of contemporary music plays just as important a role as the unusual instrumentation of works or the inclusion of young artists.

The DMV jury awards the “Best Concert Programme of the 2022/2023 Season” to the Anhaltische Philharmonie Dessau under the direction of General Music Director Markus L. Frank with the following justification:

“In the 2022/23 season, no less than three musicians and composers of the 19th century, who are sometimes underestimated today but were important and prominent in their time, will be presented: August Klughardt, Friedrich Kuhlau and Robert Fuchs. In this way, the public’s gaze, which is otherwise all too often focused on only a few names and places, is broadened to include the rich musical heritage of the bourgeois era.

The canon of great masterpieces is by no means neglected with symphonies by Beethoven, Brahms, Bruckner and Sibelius, and classical modernism is also represented with a colourful geographical and stylistic range from Ibert and Messiaen to Bacewicz and Lutosławski to Lowell Liebermann and Friedrich Gulda. Musicians of the Anhalt Philharmonic Orchestra also participate in the concert series “Raum für Klang” at the Bauhaus Dessau with new and the latest music and in the chamber music season with six varied programmes.”

In addition to family and youth concerts and the silent film rarity “Girl Shy” from 1924 with live music, the programme includes a special event on two weekends in June, Carl Orff’s “Carmina Burana”. Supported by the opera choir of the Anhalt Theatre, enthusiastic singers from near and far will come together to form a ‘scratch choir’ and perform the world-famous work in the open air. After two years of forced pause due to the pandemic, those responsible were courageous enough to plan such a major event in good time and with confidence in the long-awaited opening: an important impetus for the return to a musical life without fear.

Thus the Anhalt Philharmonic proves to be a cultural carrier in the best sense of the word. Its programme always offers the knowledgeable audience something new and at the same time has a promoting and connecting effect for the culture of the city society and beyond. All of this convinced the jury and they decided to award the Anhaltische Philharmonie the prize for “Best Concert Programme of the 2022/2023 Season”.

The DMV is an association of music publishers from all over Germany. With around 350 member publishers, the association represents around 95 per cent of the music publishing turnover generated in Germany. The music publishers organised in the DMV achieved a turnover of 580 million euros in the 2019 financial year. The printing and distribution of sheet music account for around sixteen percent of the total turnover of the music publishers. Other sources of revenue include the rights and licences for advertising, music in films, which are administered by the publishers, as well as the revenue from the rights administered collectively by GEMA for domestic and foreign authors and their publishers.