In recent years the CLASSICAL BEAT festival has become an integral part of Travemünde Week: Since 2021, concerts combining classical music and jazz with innovative and modern elements have taken place in the ballroom of the ATLANTIC Grand Hotel right on the beach.
This year, Pierre Bertrand and the Franco-German CLASSICAL BEAT Big Band will take the audience back to New York in the 1920s, to the beginnings of big band music: for an atmospheric evening, the musicians will take you back to the legendary Cotton Club, where jazz and the big band had their beginnings. The programme follows the idea of Duke Ellington, who founded his orchestra at the Cotton Club in order to establish jazz as the modern music of the 20th century and to bring it to the philharmonic halls.
Another highlight of the musical journey to New York is Daniel Schnyder’s “Memoirs of America” – a very personal programme by the Swiss saxophonist, flutist and composer, who has been living in the USA for more than 30 years and who will be on stage in Travemünde together with Etienne Abelin and the Archos Quartet.
Gregor Huebner will also return to the CLASSICAL BEAT festival this year: he will open the festival together with the Munich Composers Collective on 18 July. Among others, his piece “The eponymous New World, 9 November 2016” will be premiered in a newly orchestrated version – in Lübeck’s new venue “Juniper”. Huebner has lived in New York for many years, and in this work he has worked through his shock after the results of the 2016 US election – a topic that has become increasingly relevant again this year.
Visitors can also experience Gregor Huebner at the start of the concert series at the ATLANTIC Grand Hotel in Travemünde. Gregor Huebner and four musicians from the Munich Composer Collective, Ilja Ruf and four musicians from the University of Music Lübeck will perform under the direction of Bernd Ruf.
The concert Discover The European Borders – LOKs in Travemünde offers the audience a profound and multi-dimensional musical experience, combining the extraordinary visions and forms of expression of four European and seven German composers. LOKS will also feature the world premiere of a piece by four young composers from different backgrounds and styles, offering a wide range of sounds and aesthetics.
But the Juniper is not the only new location for the CLASSICAL BEAT Festival: although the main programme will take place as usual at the ATLANTIC Grand Hotel in Travemünde, on 25 July there will be an open-air concert by the band “Indiogenes”, whose musicians will bring the rich cultural heritage of the indigenous peoples of America to the Brügmanngarten in Travemünde.
Those who prefer a quieter evening after the hustle and bustle of Travemünde Week can take the ferry to the SLOW-DOWN stage on the Priwall:
Here there are open-air concerts for young talents on the festival’s water stage and the new jazz series “Jazz in the harbour bar”. Enjoy a beer and good music – for example from the Hamburg duo Interklang or the Hanse Jazz Quintet – for a wonderfully relaxed end to the day.
For more information and tickets: www.classicalbeat.de