LUCERNE AND PRESS

MEDIA RELEASE 
FROM LUCERNE FESTIVAL
 Autumn 2006

Great Success of LUCERNE FESTIVAL IN TOKYO in 2006 (October 11th – 19th).

15,000 Japanese spectators fired with enthusiasm enjoyed twelve concerts spread over a period of eight days.

For the first time in the history of renowned Suntory Hall in Tokyo, a festival and its orchestra were invited for an eight-day guest performance. The declared goal of Ar-tistic and Executive Director Michael Haefliger, Masa Kajimoto, President of Kajimoto Concert Management, and Takeshi Hara, President of Suntory Hall, which is cele-brating its 20-year jubilee, was to offer an opportunity to experience not “merely” concerts but the very “spirit of LUCERNE FESTIVAL“. Thanks to its excellent acous-tics, Suntory Hall is the most sought after concert hall of Japan. Such a long-term and versatile presence on this site is a more than remarkable commendation.

Maurizio Pollini opened the concert cycle with early piano works by Arnold Schoen-berg, Ludwig van Beethoven’s Appassionata, Franz Liszt’s Sonata for Piano in B-flat minor, as well as Liszt’s late piano works and thanked the audience with five en-cores. Claudio Abbado, the LUCERNE FESTIVAL ORCHESTRA, and soprano Ra-chel Harnisch offered an inspired rendering of arias by W A Mozart and Gustav Mahler’s Symphony No. 6. The enthusiastically acclaimed finale was also presented by Claudio Abbado, his orchestra, and Maurizio Pollini with Johannes Brahm’s Piano Concerto No. 2 in B major and Anton Bruckner’s Symphony No. 4. The two sym-phony concerts were played on two evenings each and framed three chamber-music concerts, a chamber-music marathon, two brass concerts – one of them an open-air one – as well as master classes by solo clarinettist Sabine Meyer and concertmaster Kolja Blacher.

The extremely heterogeneous Japanese audience – from devoutly listening children to music lovers quite advanced in years – once again proved to be particularly well prepared and attentive. Highly focussed silence throughout all the concerts, enthusi-astic applause and a strong desire to speak and hear the musicians themselves – briefly elucidates the general mood. There were numerous and cordial encounters at the open-air concert as well as at the master classes and the stage entrance, where crowds of fans waited to get hold of an autograph.

With a grand total of 15,000 concertgoers, the guest performance proved highly suc-cessful. On the occasion of the final press conference, Executive Directors Michael Haefliger, Masa Kajimoto, and Takeshi Hara, who were highly motivated and satis-fied, declared, “LUCERNE FESTIVAL IN TOKYO was characterized by a mutual phi-losophy based on a demand for the highest possible musical quality and creativity”.

Jürg Reinshagen, President of the Board of Trustees, and 35 music enthusiasts of the “Friends of LUCERNE FESTIVAL” accompanied the guest performance.

Following Rome (autumn 2005), this was the second residency abroad of the orches-tra established in 2003 by Claudio Abbado and Michael Haefliger. Details on the next guest performance abroad in 2007 will follow.

LUCERNE FESTIVAL IN TOKYO 2006 was generously supported by Nestlé.