About Us

Chronology | Team | Association | Board of Trustees

Chronology

Located in Saxony’s unspoiled rural landscape, the Moritzburg Castle welcomes today one of the world’s most prestigious chamber music festivals.

The Moritzburg Festival under the artistic direction of internationally renowned and ECHO awarded cellist Jan Vogler was founded in 1993 by Kai Vogler, Peter Bruns and Jan Vogler. All three artists had been participants in the famous Marlboro Festival in the USA several times and were looking for an opportunity to establish a similar concept in the German federal state of Saxony—Moritzburg Castle near Dresden appeared to be the ideal setting to carry out this ambitious project.

Owing to the presence of internationally renowned soloists and to the unique atmosphere of Moritzburg Castle the festival has quickly developed a unique spirit defined by highest musical standards and enthusiasm of the participating artists. Moritzburg has thus become a workshop of intense exchange of musical ideas, as far as the artists are concerned, and for the audience a top class music event which attracts visitors both from Germany and from abroad. Last but not least, the special dynamics of the concerts is created by the encounter between young, distinguished musicians and artists of international acclaim.

The festival takes place every year in August. During two weeks soloists from all over the world concentrate on works of chamber music and perform them in concerts at the end. The number of artists amounts to 25 every year, from countries like USA, Japan, China, Canada, Israel, England, Russia, Italy, Austria, Switzerland and Germany.

Covering the whole range of chamber music literature, the programmes of the festival deal with contemporary music on an extensive scale as well. Thus, since 1997 the festival awards the position of the Composer-in-Residence, which in the past years was held by composers like Wolfgang Rihm, Thomas Adès, Mark-Anthony Turnage, Esa-Pekka Salonen, Steven Stucky, Gustavo Beytelmann, Jörg Widmann, Helmut Oehring, Iris ter Schiphorst, Steffen Schleiermacher, Chen Yi and Zhou Long.

Since 2006 the newly founded Moritzburg Festival Academy gives young talented music students the opportunity to prepare chamber orchestra as well as chamber music works for performance within the Festival. Every year 40 young music students have the opportunity to work together with established and renowned concert artists of the international music scene.

The tour project with “Moritzburg Festival on Tour”, initiated in 2001, leads to important music centers of Germany, Europe and the USA.

Team

Artistic Direction

Jan Vogler

Executive Board

Jana Friedrich
Mandy Jarsumbeck

Association

The non profit association was founded in 1992 and has the name “Kammermusik Festival Schloss Moritzburg e.V.”. It pursues the purpose to stage a chamber music festival in Moritzburg and additional venues every year in August. The festival intends to be a meeting point for internationally renowned artists and give them the opportunity to work together on the musically highest level. The intensely rehearsed chamber music compositions will be presented to a wide publicity in several concerts.

Members of the Executive Board

Albrecht Bolza-Schünemann (Chairman)
Wolfgang Hanke (Vice Chairman)
Birgit Heinze (Treasurer)
Jan Vogler (Artistic Director)

Board of Trustees

The Moritzburg Festival Board of Trustees unites outstanding personalities from politics, economy and culture. The common aim is to enable a perspectively ideal development to the Festival and to be in a constantly constructive-minded dialog.

The members are solely working in an honorary capacity and fulfill an advising task. The Board of Trustees endeavours to connect different branches with the association and to do extensive networking.

Members

Dr. Thomas de Maizière (Chairman)
Albrecht Bolza-Schünemann
Dr. Edwin G. Fischer (Friends of Dresden Music Foundation, Newport, USA)
Dr. Christoph Hollenders
Dr. Jürgen Mülder
Gabriele Schiller
Stefan Schulte
Dr. Hans-UIrich Seidt