2023-08-23 08:00:00
The Salzburg Sun Orchestra consists of blind and visually impaired professional musicians. At the weekend the quartet will perform in the Mirabell Palace Church.
The idea came about when Hossam Mahmoud heard the Blind Orchestra in Cairo. “I was surprised at how well they play,” says the chairman of the Sonnenorchester. The interpretation of Mozart impressed him at the time because the musicians come from a completely different musical culture. That made the Egyptian composer curious. “We see it when we play,” the musicians said to Mahmoud after the concert. “This sentence has always accompanied me since then.”
The idea of founding an orchestra for the blind soon arose. The cultural department of the city of Salzburg was enthusiastic about the project idea. In April 2019, Mahmoud founded the Musikverein Sonnenorchester, a classical blind orchestra without a conductor. Musical communication between the musicians is important to the artistic director, conductors are only a distraction. You need more rehearsals, but communication with each other works much better.
Mahmoud is also certain that the concentration of the blind and visually impaired musicians is much higher than that of the sighted because they are not distracted as quickly. “The music is much more natural and has more character and origin.” The inclusive cultural project is well received by the public. There has already been positive feedback. At the concerts, Mahmoud and the Sonnenorchester are all about the music, and the audience feels that too.
The ensemble designed the August program
The Sonnenorchester consists of the opera singer Alina Konarska-Schmidt, the flutist Silvia Habisch, the violist Johannes Wessiepe and the pianist Matthias Gampe, most of whom also work as musicians outside of the orchestra. The program of concerts in August was designed by the ensemble with works by Peter Tchaikovsky, Franz Liszt, Georg Philipp Telemann and many more.
Born in Poland, Alina Konarska-Schmidt is a trained opera singer and pianist. She has been teaching piano and opera singing since 2008. But she prefers to sing on stage. Together with Habisch and Gampe, she has been part of the Sonnenorchester from the very beginning. “That was also completely new for me. Although I’ve been completely blind since birth, I’ve almost always played in orchestras with sighted people, as have my colleagues, and that’s a challenge for me personally, since everyone now has the problem, doesn’t it just me,” says the singer.
The musical coordination among each other works differently, with everyone having their own strategy. The trained pianist and organist Matthias Gampe has been a church musician in Bad Neuenahr-Ahrweiler since 2005. “It’s my fault that we play Tchaikovsky in August,” says the pianist with a laugh. He suggested Eugene Onegin’s letter scene because the singer liked it vocally. She learned the text with a Russian teacher. Gampe is also looking forward to the two Études by Franz Liszt, which have inspired him since childhood.
Silvia Habisch only started playing the flute when she was an adult. Since then, the Bregenz native has been taking lessons and rehearsing regularly with Vera Klug from the Musikum for the concerts. She finds the most exciting part of the upcoming concert program to be the work by Georg Philipp Telemann, which she will play in an equal voice together with the violist Johannes Wessiepe.
For Wessiepe it is only the second sun orchestra concert. The trained musician is particularly looking forward to Telemann’s trio sonata, “where one is really challenged to play the viola”.
Remaining tickets are still available for the concerts in the Mirabell Palace Church on Friday, August 25 at 8 p.m. and Saturday, August 26 at 11 a.m. and 8 p.m.
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