Summer concerts by the University Orchestra
When music tells stories
- von Arne Rensing
- 15.06.2026
To mark the end of the current semester, the Duisburg-Essen University Orchestra is presenting three very different works as part of its summer programme, ‘Narrated Music: Landscape, Voice, Monument’, each of which aims to bring images, moods and stories to life through sound in its own unique way.
Under the baton of Oliver Leo Schmidt, the musicians will open the concert with Jean Sibelius’s tone poem “En Saga”. The Finnish composer, who often drew inspiration from the nature and myths of his homeland, creates soundscapes in his music that evoke vast landscapes, mysterious tales and the atmosphere of the North.
The centrepiece of the programme is Carl Maria von Weber’s “Concertino for Clarinet and Orchestra”. The work is regarded as a musical-dramatic narrative in which the clarinet is at times calm and lyrical, at times lively and virtuosic. In interplay with the orchestra, a varied musical dialogue thus unfolds. The solo part is performed by 17-year-old clarinettist Moritz Siegel from the “folkwang junior” youth development programme.
The programme concludes with Alexander Borodin’s “Second Symphony”, which combines powerful and solemn passages with lively, dance-like sections. Borodin weaves these contrasts into a grand musical arc that lends the symphony its distinctive character.
Dates
10. July 2026, 8 pm, Erlöserkirche, Essen
11. July 2026, 5 pm, Zeche Zollverein, Essen, Hall 12
Further information & tickets
https://uniorchester-duisburg-essen.de