Listen here to ORF-OE1 Radio Interview with Artistic Director Jörg Birhance about EMIV conducting course (Courtesy ORF):
English transcript:
Music: Egon Wellesz: Music for String Orchestra in one Movement, op. 91 (Edition: Doblinger).
Orchestra: WienSinfonietta
JB: “We are very fortunate to be able to expand here in the premises of Laudon Palace. We have six teaching rooms in the palace and here in the Oktogon, where we rehearse with the orchestra, hold the children’s violin course, we have the rooms where the students can practice. So they can really find the conditions here that they need in order to benefit as much as possible in the relatively short time they are with us, so that they can take a lot back home.”
OE1: “Students from all over the world come together here. With renowned teachers, they have the opportunity to receive instruction at the most advanced level. Jörg Birhance’s conducting course includes works by Mozart and Haydn as well as a particularly challenging work by the Austrian composer Egon Wellesz.”
JB: “The students come and say: ‘my goodness, there is no recording of this at all’ – of course I always have to laugh a lot because it shows that the young people like to study the works with recordings, which is total nonsense, of course. You really have to make this effort and get into the score and you have to confront with this abstraction in order to make it real. Then the students are first somehow helpless, but then they automatically get this very lively and vibrant response from the orchestra. And this encounter with an entirely unknown music that obeys the same laws as Haydn is a very tremendous experience for everyone.”
Off-Rehearsal: “Here you must beat a big One, not be afraid that a dynamic problem might arise, no, so that we can enter broadly on the Two“.
OE1: “European Music Institute Vienna offers great experiences not only for students and professional musicians, but also offers summer courses for very young students.”
JB: “We care a lot to bring them together with teachers they don’t usually meet during the year in their music schools so that they get a wider perspective early on. This is an extraordinary meeting that also gives them a lot of inspiration. Actually, we happen to have this conducting course parallel to the children’s violin course in terms of time and venue, and the children walk in and are amazed and question: where is that now in the score – in some cases they can’t even read music yet – that’s really most beautiful.”
Off-Rehearsal: “The climax is now over and we have to let the music flow again. The same passage again, please, that’s quite excellent.“