tickets:
regular: 14,- €uro
students, disabled persons: 7,- €uro
ATTENTION:
doors: 5.30 pm CET
concert starts:
approx. 6.00 pm CET
When a classical bassoonist and a jazz pianist play together as a duo, can it work? It helps if the bassoonist has a special interest in the intersections between classical music, new music, and jazz—and if the jazz pianist is classically trained and also an accomplished composer.
Both of these apply to the duo of Theo Plath and Hans LĂĽdemann. Their program Tiefblau delves into the musical borderlands between classical music and jazz, composition and improvisation. It is an exciting journey into a varied, colorful, intimate, emotional, and energetic world of sound.
How did such an unusual connection come about? It could well be a mixture of musical passion and curiosity to enter and explore musical areas that are still relatively unexplored and therefore particularly exciting.
The concert program is correspondingly creative and contemporary: some of the compositions for this duo are works that were composed especially for Theo Plath: the piece Layers of Perception by Roger Hanschel and the title piece Tiefblau (Deep Blue) by Hans Lüdemann. Both pieces describe great arcs of tension; Tiefblau is multi-part, very varied in structure, and is being performed for the first time. In both pieces, the bassoon part is highly virtuosic in places – but there is also room for reflection, for differentiated atmospheric and tonal design.
Not quite so new, but also situated at the intersection of classical music and jazz, are the compositions of Manfred Schoof and Daniel Schnyder. Manfred Schoof’s “Impromptus” are full of playful ideas and moments. Their lightness arises from a natural musical flow. The “Sonata for Bassoon and Piano” by Swiss composer Daniel Schnyder has a three-movement sonata form and is probably the most formally rigorous piece in the program. However, the movements contain jazz elements in composed form, so that in places one might think that improvisation is also involved. This is not the case here, but it is in other parts of the program—but that remains a secret for now and could be the special spice in the concert that adds to the excitement of this special musical undertaking.
Into the depths, out into the blue!
THEO PLATH
has been principal bassoonist with the Frankfurt Radio Symphony Orchestra since 2019 and is a prize winner of the 2019 ARD International Music Competition.
https://www.theoplath.de/
He has performed as a soloist with the Munich Chamber Orchestra, the Frankfurt Radio Symphony Orchestra, and the Mozarteum Orchestra Salzburg, among others, and has appeared in venues such as the Elbphilharmonie in Hamburg, London’s Wigmore Hall, and the Teatro Colón in Buenos Aires.
Theo Plath is a regular guest at international festivals such as the Schleswig-Holstein Music Festival, the Lucerne Festival, and the “Spannungen” Festival in Heimbach, where he collaborates with artists such as Vilde Frang, Christian Tetzlaff, Maximilian Hornung, Albrecht Mayer, and Fabian Müller.
Theo Plath is a member of the Monet Quintet and Trio Neo, and also enjoys a close artistic collaboration with pianist Aris Alexander Blettenberg.
Theo Plath studied with Prof. Dag Jensen at the Munich University of Music and Performing Arts, receiving further important inspiration from Prof. Sergio Azzolini and Prof. Nikolaus Maler. In addition to third prize at the ARD International Music Competition, he has won first prizes at numerous competitions such as the 2012 Aeolus Competition and the 2018 German Music Competition.
Theo Plath can be heard on numerous CD recordings. For the Orpheum Foundation’s “Next Generation Mozart Soloists” series, he is recording W. A. Mozart’s Bassoon Concerto K. 191 and Sinfonia Concertante K. 297b.
Since October 2024, Theo Plath has been professor of bassoon at the Frankfurt University of Music and Performing Arts.
He regularly shares his enthusiasm for classical music with children and young people as part of the “Rhapsody in School” initiative.
HANS LĂśDEMANN
was born in Hamburg in 1961, lived in Los Angeles, USA, in 1978/79, and has lived in Cologne since 1982. He studied classical piano at the Hamburg Conservatory, jazz piano with Joachim Kühn at the Cologne University of Music, and at the Banff Centre in Canada. He graduated in 1990 with the first jazz concert exam in Germany. His international career began in 1986 as a member of Eberhard Weber/Jan Garbarek’s group CHORUS with a two-month tour of Asia. Lüdemann has collaborated with many important musicians, including Muhal Richard Abrams, Paul Bley (duo CD), Toumani Diabate, Marc Ducret, Mark Feldman, Sol Gabetta, Lee Konitz, Patricia Kopachinskaja, Albert Mangelsdorff, Rita Marcotulli, Angelika Niescier, Heinz Sauer, and Gianluigi Trovesi.
https://www.hansluedemann.de/
Hans Lüdemann is a “wanderer between worlds” who has formed unique European bands with the piano trio ROOMS and the German-French octet “TransEuropeExpress” (T.E.E.) and, in TRIO IVOIRE with African balafonist Aly Keita, creates transcultural connections between Africa, Europe, and jazz. As a solo pianist, he played a tribute to the “Köln concert” at the Cologne Opera, and he expands the acoustic piano sound with his “virtual piano” to create a microtonal instrument. As a soloist and with his ensembles, Lüdemann is at home worldwide at festivals, concert stages, and clubs between Berlin, Bamako, Budapest, Istanbul, Paris, Rome, Beijing, Havana, Cape Town, and New York. Solo tours have taken him throughout Europe, Africa, China, and North America. His music is documented on numerous CD and sheet music releases by renowned labels and publishers. The CD box set “die kunst des trios” (the art of the trio) was awarded the “ECHO Jazz 2013” prize. His more recent releases include the solo CD “das reale Klavier” (the real piano), the sheet music volume “Rhythmic Etudes,” the album “mikroPULS,” which was voted one of the “Albums of the Year 2019” by New York City Jazz Record, and the CD “Enchanted Forest” by Trio Ivoire. In 2022/2023, the album trilogy “on the edges 1 – 3” was released with the TransEuropeExpress ensemble.
Hans Lüdemann has received commissions from WDR, SWR, hR, the NDR Big Band, the Cologne Opera, Steinway & Sons, and the Kunststiftung NRW. His works range from solo music and songs to chamber music and music for big band, choir, and orchestra. In 2021 and 2023, he was artist in residence at the Tarabya Cultural Academy in Istanbul, and in 2021/22 he was awarded the Villa Massimo Rome Prize for Composition by the Federal Republic of Germany. His composition “Collisione Mondiale” was nominated for the “German Jazz Prize 2024.”
Lüdemann accompanied German President Johannes Rau on a trip to Africa in 2002. From 1993 to 2008, he taught jazz piano and ensemble at the Cologne University of Music, led the Creative Jazz Workshop at the European Academy of Montepulciano, Italy, from 2001 to 2007, the “JeuneJazzJam Paris-Cologne” at the Cologne University of Music and CSNDP Paris in 2008, and was appointed “Cornell Visiting Professor” at Swarthmore College in Philadelphia, USA, in 2009/2010 and 2015/16. He has been invited to give master classes at international music academies such as Santa Cecilia in Rome. Hans Lüdemann lives as a musician and composer in Hoffnungsthal near Cologne, Germany.
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