Conc Music Festival

Review 2021

From August 20th to 29th, the city of Konz organized together with the culturally oriented association 'Vogel als Prophet e.V.' the Konz Music Festival 2021. The festival took up the tradition of the Konz Summer Academy, which has existed since 1994, and whose tasks also included musical training in the field of piano and chamber music, as well as the public performance of classical music in the form of concert events.

After the death of the founder of the Summer Academy, the music teacher Paul Trein, the city of Konz and the association 'Vogel als Prophet e.V.' We looked for ways to continue and expand this cultural tradition and found what we were looking for in 2019 with the engagement of the Wincheringen-based pianist and Steinway artist Joseph Moog as the new artistic director.

After the extremely successful start of the new festival with six concert events in September 2019, an expansion to thirteen concerts with international artists and the new edition of the summer academy for the purpose of training young talents were planned for the following year. In the course of the developments of the corona pandemic from March 2020, however, a comprehensive change of plan was necessary.

In close cooperation with the state of Rhineland-Palatinate and with the local authorities, despite the complicated starting position, five concert events were held in the period mentioned at the beginning, taking into account the safety and hygiene regulations valid at the time. This year it was not only possible to catch up on the events already planned for 2020 and fallen victim to the pandemic, but also to relaunch the traditional summer academy for young musicians from all over the world.

The Konz Music Festival offered an extremely varied program with the performances of numerous musicians from all over the world within the framework of a total of 12 events (see brochure in the right column) and
enabled the participants to carry out intensive pedagogical work internally. All musical works were worked out individually as well as in the group and finally presented in the concert. The festival team has succeeded in inviting a total of twelve young musicians between the ages of 17 and 35 from eleven nations to Konz to receive further training from six renowned musicians and teachers and to give them new impulses and suggestions, especially in times of cultural emergency admit. The results of this lesson
were also able to inspire the youngest listeners in three concerts in the Greater Region, because for the first time the famous 'Carnival of the Animals' by jubilarian Saint-Saens was also a children's and youth concert, which was sold out thanks to the reduced admission fee.

As in previous years, the festival attracted a great deal of attention from old and new media in the Greater Region, which is clearly reflected in the radio recording of the opening concert by SWR2 and the reporting in neighboring Luxembourg. This year, despite the extremely challenging conditions, more than 1,200 music lovers and visitors were enthusiastic.

Thanks to the efforts of its comrades-in-arms and its team, the Konz Music Festival has made an important contribution to the cultivation of the Saar-Upper Moselle cultural landscape in the culturally almost silent crisis year 2021 and, with the help of its media activities, raised awareness of the attractiveness of the greater region far beyond Rhineland-Palatinate.

The public visit to the Konz Music Festival 2021 has continued the positive trend of recent years and shows the growing interest in this series of events based on a long tradition. The lively concert life reached the audience even under the difficult conditions of the corona pandemic and thus fulfilled its mission to shape culture in the region.