JUBILEE

While he was still a student, Rudens Turku established the Starnberg Music Days. Over the past twenty years this renowned festival south of Munich featuring an attractive combination of master classes and top-quality concerts has become a highlight of the musical spring season. To celebrate its twentieth anniversary, Turku has brought together an illustrious company of teachers and soloists for an ambitious project: chamber music on the large scale and with musicians numbering among the best in their fields. The Nonet by Louis Spohr is only rather rarely heard in the concert hall; here nine outstanding chamber musicians perform in extraordinary circumstances. In addition, the violin part is of daredevil virtuosity – which is no problem for Rudens Turku. Ulf-Guido Schäfer arranged Antonín Dvorák’s uncommonly popular American Suiteespecially for thisoccasion, and it is astonishing how a mere eight musicians can and do make Dvorák’s orchestral colors shine. Wolf Kerschek’s “Festival Rhaps