Teodor Currentzis
It’s not just the variety of works performed that make his concerts so stimulating: without a baton but using his whole body, Teodor Currentzis stands for a new kind of conducting
»If you believe you know things, you end up just reproducing them. What’s important is to discover something« – thus Teodor Currentzis’s musical credo. One is inclined to add: and to feel something. For it is these two aspects that make the Greek-Russian conductor’s concerts into the sensational events that they undoubtedly are. On the one hand, even the best-known works sound like first performances in his hands, so many new details does he bring to light. And at the same time, Currentzis manages as hardly any other conductor does to bridge the distance between orchestra and audience, turning the concert into a shared experience. With his radically subjective and always highly energetic readings, Teodor Currentzis has been responsible for quite a few highlights at the Elbphilharmonie.
He often has the musicAeterna ensemble at his side that he founded himself. And they accompany him to Hamburg for several appearances this season, among them a three-day residency during Easter week.
Currentzis also makes two visits to Hamburg with the SWR Symphony Orchestra, whose principal conductor he has been since 2018. On the first occasion, they perform a Prokofiev programme, in which Chopin Competition winner Yulianna Avdeeva can be heard. Then they return in April to perform a viola concerto by Jörg Widmann, in which Antoine Tamestit is the soloist.