The National Forum of Music and the Wrocław Baroque Orchestra for the fourth time invite you to their Academy combining a minifestival with a series of master classes for undergraduate singers and instrumentalists.

This year’s edition focuses on the oeuvre of Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy, a composer whose name may not happen to be mentioned in one breath with such geniuses as Bach, Handel or Mozart, to whom we devoted the previous editions of our Academy. And yet the impact of Mendelssohn’s work transcends the purely musical value of his pieces, which is all the more important to note in the context of the 500th anniversary of Luther’s Reformation to be celebrated in 2017 around the world. Mendelssohn is not only a Romantic composer par excellence, he is also, as a Jew turned Protestant, a reformer of German liturgical music and advocate of the oratorio genre typical of the German tradition.

And above all the one who rediscovered the work of Johann Sebastian Bach. In was he who, by performing Bach’s St Matthew Passion after almost one hundred years of its absence from repertoires, sparked the revival of the Leipzig Kantor’s output and brought his music back to concert life, which is Mendelssohn’s seminal contribution to music history.

This year’s Academy will culminate with a re-enactment of this extraordinary event – a performance of St Matthew Passion as edited by Mendelssohn. Hans-Christoph Rademann joins the Wrocław Baroque Orchestra, the Dresdner Kammerchor and the NFM Choir. The way to the great finale wi l l be marked with superb chamber concerts, featuring such outstanding players as Roel Dieltiens and Piet Kuijken. They will present a panorama of early Romantic chamber music inspired by Bach. The programme also includes choral music with the festival choir directed by Agnieszka FrankówŻelazny (motets and songs), as well as symphonic music: the NFM Wrocław Phi lharmonic under Ruben Gazarian will play Mendelssohn’s Symphony No. 5 in D Major ‘Reformation’.

Other featured soloists of world-renown are Linus Roth, Ingeborg Danz, and Nicholas Mulroy. Lectures and meetings with the artists open to the public will add variety to the concert programme.

Come and join us for the Mendelssohn Academy in Wrocław.

Jarosław Thiel
Artistic Director of Wrocław Baroque Orchestra