07/03/2014
Passau, Germany
Fantasmi has arrived in Europe! What a wonderful opportunity for students of early music to experience the birthplace of our repertoire first hand, and also to perform it in the venues it was composed for. Our first stop is the beautiful town of Passau on the border between Germany and Austria. It is cradled by the three rivers meeting on the corner of the old city, at what is called in German “Drei Ecken Flüße” or three corner river. We are in Passau for almost a week, spending our time on final preparations for our first concert, while also acting as the orchestra for the international Recorder workshop held here annually by our director Professor Leenhouts, with the help of Inge Reinelt (also the guest performer at our first concert) and the Städtische Musikschule Passau. This workshop has become a mainstay in the Passau early music calendar, and the addition of an orchestra to accompany the eight international soloists took the workshop to a next level. The participants are from all over Europe, and although they are of varied technical levels, they are very well prepared and rehearsing with them is a pleasant experience. We have our first concert in the little town of Vornbach am Inn at the Maria Himmelfahrt Church. The acoustics are a lot wetter than we are used to (the church has a 14 second reverb!!), which makes a huge difference when you are playing with a smaller group. But since we are playing a program of works mainly composed in these areas by the composers who lived here, it should be easy to be inspired by the incredible architecture of our first venue…
I will post again soon to give an update on the workshop and also on our concert in the awe inspiring st. Stephan’s Dom.
Tschüß!!!