„NAPOLÉON ET LA MUSIQUE“ – CONCERTS IN THE CHÂTEAU

Thomas Hengelbrock and the Balthasar Neumann Ensemble are starting the 2021/2022 season with a project week at the Château de Fontainebleau. The concerts will be dedicated to Napoleon, whose 200th death anniversary is being commemorated in France with many activities and whose musical connections will be traced in the concert programmes.

A central aspect of the project week is music education: on the one hand, the musicians will not only play in the impressive halls of the Château, but also in old people’s homes for socially disadvantaged members of society. On the other hand, the cooperation with the organisation “Orchestre à l’École” is intensified. The young musicians of a school orchestra rehearse with members of the Balthasar Neumann Ensemble and Thomas Hengelbrock and together bring a concert programme with arrangements of overtures by Spontini to the stage in the Salle de Bal!

The project week takes place within the framework of the artistic residency of the Balthasar Neumann Ensemble at the Château de Fontainebleau, which is under the patronage of UNESCO. At the heart of the residency are four music weekends, each with an individual thematic focus at the beginning of each season. The close network of political and cultural relations between France and Germany over the centuries serves as an inspiring model. Under the direction of Thomas Hengelbrock and the Balthasar Neumann Ensemble, leading artists from all over Europe come together to revive the ” Foyer artistique ” tradition so typical of Fontainebleau and to be inspired by the extraordinary setting of the Château and its historical wealth.

Under the patronage of UNESCO