Michael sanderling has arrived safely in lucerne: with his wife and two school-age sons, primarily as an artist. “The political situation here is completely different from that in Dresden,” says the former chief conductor of the Dresden Philharmonic, as we sit together in the new orchestra center of the Lucerne Symphony Orchestra at the “South Pole” at the feet of Pilatus. “Here, commitment to an orchestra is not offset against commitment to kindergartens.” For the left-wing populists in Dresden City Council, classical music was a minority pastime that deserved less support than it received. In November 2016, the red-green-red majority in the local parliament against Mayor Dirk Hilbert (FDP) decided on an extremely short-term budget cut for Sanderling’s orchestra of a quarter of a million euros, five months before the opening of the new concert hall in the converted Kulturpalast, five weeks before the start of the new financial year.
Sanderling felt betrayed, especially by the cultural mayor Annekathrin Klepsch (Die Linke). At a joint dinner the day before the debate, she said nothing about the intended cut, although she already knew that there were plans to do so. When the mayor passionately advocated the orchestra in parliament, the cultural mayor did not raise her voice, although she should have. Sanderling said on the spot that he was no longer available to negotiate an extension of his contract beyond 2019. “I was deeply disappointed, not by the orchestra, nor by Dresden’s urban society, but by the cultural mayor, who I could no longer trust,” he confirms his decision today.
At the time, the director of the Lucerne Symphony Orchestra, Numa Bischof Ullmann, pricked up his ears at the events in Dresden. He invited the conductor to a two-week residency at the Lucerne Concert and Congress Center (KKL) and a tour of South Korea, all in spring 2019, before the official end of Sanderling’s tenure in Saxony. The conductor liked the new orchestra: “I have seldom been as happy musically in my life as I am here. The musicians come to the rehearsals very well prepared and have already thoroughly read the way I set up the score. At the same time, the orchestra is extremely quick to react, which on the one hand has to do with the fact that it also plays opera in the local theater and on the other hand that it comes from the mobile communication of a chamber symphony. And thirdly, the orchestra has a strong will to develop. It wants to move on and grow.” That is what the director wants above all. Numa Bischof Ullmann, in Lucerne since 2003, formerly employed as orchestra manager at the Sinfonietta Basel, is one of the most resourceful and risk-taking cultural managers in Switzerland. And he’s successful.
The Lucerne Symphony Orchestra, founded in 1805, is the oldest orchestra in Switzerland, but was also the smallest for a long time. With the help of a private foundation, Bishop Ullmann financed the growth of the orchestra from 50 to 70 musicians from 2005 onwards. Now, with Sanderling as chief conductor, succeeding James Gaffigan, the orchestra is to continue to grow in order to be able to master the late romantic repertoire of Anton Bruckner and Richard Strauss from its own resources.
“We behave anti-cyclically,” bishop Ullmann jokes, “everywhere the institutions are being weakened, here they are being strengthened. Everywhere the interest in audio carriers is declining, we continue to rely on DVDs and CDs because they are important for the transmission of our work”. The director has succeeded in having a new orchestra center built at the “Südpol”, a venue for the free art scene and in the immediate vicinity of the music college. It accommodates tuning rooms, cloakrooms, administration offices, rooms for the musical mediation work and a rehearsal room with a volume of four thousand cubic meters in studio quality. A complete recording of the four symphonies by Johannes Brahms is currently being made there. The center was occupied in 2020 and cost thirteen million Swiss francs, ninety percent privately financed.
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