God of Dreams
Star violist Nils Mönkemeyer plays a concert as part of the Weimar Master Classes
For an internationally renowned violist like Nils Mönkemeyer, the Weimar Master Classes are a period of artistic concentration, but also of relative calm at the end of a busy season 2023/24. Mönkemeyer has performed as a soloist and chamber musician on major stages between London, Vienna, Zurich, Madrid and Prague.
In Weimar, he can now be seen as a ‘master in concert’ on Saturday, 27 July at 7:30 p.m. in the Festsaal Fürstenhaus of the Weimar Music university. Tickets are available at the Tourist Information Weimar and at the box office for 20 euros, reduced rate 15 euros.
As part of his guest professorship concert, the violist will perform Johannes Brahms' early FAE Sonata (based on the motto “free but lonely”), which Brahms composed together with Robert Schumann, among others. He will be accompanied on the piano by Ulrike Payer. Nils Mönkemeyer will contrast this early work with Brahms' late Sonata op. 120 No. 2, which can be played either on the clarinet or the viola.
The concert will begin with Rebecca Clarke's ‘Morpheus’ Sonata, originally composed for viola, whose spherical harmonies sing of the Greek god of dreams. The evening of high-calibre artistry will be rounded off with Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's Six Variations on ‘Hélas j'ai perdu mon amant’ in G minor, K. 360, which Mozart composed in 1781 during his first year in Vienna.
Artistic brilliance and innovative programme design are the hallmarks that have made Nils Mönkemeyer one of the most successful international violists and helped the viola to attract enormous attention.
In his programmes, Mönkemeyer covers a wide range of repertoire, from discoveries and first recordings of original viola literature from the 18th century to modern works and his own arrangements. This is also the case with his CD recordings for Sony Classical, which have repeatedly won awards and been celebrated by the press.
Nils Mönkemeyer works with conductors such as Andrej Boreyko, Sylvain Cambreling, Vladimir Jurowski, Joana Mallwitz, Andrew Manze, Cornelius Meister, Mark Minkowski, Kent Nagano, Markus Poschner, Kristiina Poska, Michael Sanderling and Simone Young and performs as a soloist with orchestras such as the Tonhalle Orchestra Zurich, London Philharmonic Orchestra, Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra, Tokyo Symphony Orchestra, the Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester and the Konzerthausorchester Berlin, the Dresden Philharmonic, the Frankfurt Museumsorchester, the Munich Chamber Orchestra and the Berlin Baroque Soloists.
The 2023/24 season will see Nils Mönkemeyer return to major international venues such as Wigmore Hall London, Musikverein Vienna, Royal Library Copenhagen, LAC Lugano, NFM Wroclaw, Pierre Boulez Saal Berlin, Elbphil Hamburg, Prinzregententheater Munich and Alte Oper Frankfurt, as well as festivals such as the Schubertiade, the Menuhin Festival Gstaad, the Festspiele Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, the Kissinger Sommer, the Schwetzinger SWR Festspiele and the Mozartfest Würzburg. Since 2011, Mönkemeyer has been a professor at the University of Music and Performing Arts Munich.
[24 July 2024]