Chamber Orchestra “Leo Kestenberg”

The Chamber Orchestra, founded by Alexander Ramm, performs an extensive repertoire ranging from Baroque to contemporary and modern music. In addition to offering its own concerts in Berlin, it participates internationally in concerts and festivals. In 2019, the orchestra celebrated the tenth anniversary of its partnership with the Givatayim Conservatory Orchestra in Israel. In 2011, he received an invitation from the federal president to set to music the event commemorating the tenth anniversary of the German-Israeli youth exchange ConAct at the Bellevue Palace. In 2015, he participated in important German-Israeli anniversaries and collaborated with his Israeli partner in the musicalization of the festive events in the presence of the Federal President and the President of Israel, the Foreign Ministers of both countries and the Federal Minister of Family of Germany.

A highlight for the young musicians was the memorial concert for witnesses to the Holocaust in Israel, at Yad Vashem. Since 2013, the orchestra has offered concerts in Argentina and Uruguay within the framework of the cooperation between the cities of Berlin and Buenos Aires. In 2018, Alexander Ramm and his chamber orchestra gave a concert in Montevideo at the invitation of the German Embassy, followed by a ten-day concert tour of Uruguay, funded by the Goethe-Institut. The Chamber Orchestra constantly faces new challenges in contemporary music, usually in direct collaboration with composers.

In 2015, as part of the commemorative concert “Dieter Schnebel 85” at the Berlin Academy of Arts, he performed Schnebel’s composition “Blendwerk” from 1978. Both Ramm and his orchestra have premiered several orchestral works, including works by Chris Newman, Christian Wolff, Carlé Costa, Chico Mello, Howard Skempton and Michael Parsons. There is a successful collaboration with the group “Nova Música. New Sounds and Sound Art” from the music school and 7hours, arts & concerts, Berlin. Since their first joint trip to Latin America, the orchestra has maintained a special association with guitarist, composer and professor at the Carlé Costa School of Music. His concerto for guitar and string orchestra (premiered in 2018) is a work commissioned by the Leo Kestenberg School of Music Berlin.

Program

• Ludwig van Beethoven – Romance for Violin and Orchestra No. 2 in F Major, Op. 50

• Joko Lemazh Suprayitno – Nusantara Concerto (I Bungong Jeumpa, II Don Dapdape, III Buka Pintu)

• Carl Nielsen – Kleine Suite Op.1 (I Prelude, II Intermediate, III Final)

• Pablo de Sarasate – Op.20 Zigeunerweisen (Gypsy Arias)

Iskandar Widjaja, violin • Alexander Ramm, conductor