The Württemberg Chamber Orchestra of Heilbronn, directed by Jörg Faerber, has been in existence for 39 years (up to the 1999/2000 season) and is now a first-class ensemble respected not only in Germany but across and outside Europe.
The orchestra’s fame is due in no small part to the wide range of its repertoire, extending from Baroque music and the Classical literature — including symphonic works – to string compositions of the Romantic and early modern periods and not shunning the music of the avant-garde. The orchestra plays in all the world’s great music centres either on extended tours or for individual concerts.
In September 1997 the orchestra, under the baton of its conductor Jörg Faerber, was resident on its third musical cruise (the first two being in 1991 and 1994) on the MS Europa. Seven concerts were given in the Mediterranean region featuring masterworks of the Classical and Romantic eras. Soloists included Sharon Kam, clarinet, Michael Martin Kofler, flute, and Ole Edvard Antonsen, trumpet.
The talented young German violinist Viviane Hagner was enthusiastically acclaimed in September and October 1998, together with the orchestra, in 17 tour concerts which featured:
Vivaldi’s cycle The Four Seasons.
Over 500 works have been recorded to date for various labels, including four programmes with James Galway, an award-winning recording of Shostakovich’s concerto for piano, trumpet and string orchestra and Haydn’s D major piano concerto with Martha Argerich and Guy Touvron, and Mozart concert and opera arias with Thomas Quasthoff, with whom the orchestra toured in 1996 and is touring again in April 1999. A December 1997 recording of the clarinet concertos of Mozart and Krommer with the Israeli clarinetist Sharon Kam has been well received, and this series was continued in July 1998 with the young Russian trumpet virtuoso Sergei Nakariakov.
Numerous concert broadcasts by German and foreign radio stations testify to the quality of the orchestra. Televised productions have been made for South German Broadcasting, Austrian Broadcasting and the German private station RTL plus.
Soloists regularly appearing with the orchestra includes Anne-Sophie Mutter, Maurice André, Heinz Holliger, Gidon Kremer, Alfred Brendel, James Galway, Martha Argerich, Rudolf Buchbinder, Sabine Meyer, Mstislav Rostropovich, Justus Frantz, Viktoria Mullova, Michaela Petri, Frank Peter Zimmermann and Thomas Quasthoff. The orchestra and its conductor Jörg Faerber are particularly interested in working with exceptional young soloists selected from the prizewinners of such contests as the ARD Music Competition in Munich or the German youth competition Jugend musiziert. The Württemberg Chamber Orchestra of Heilbronn, directed by Jörg Faerber, has made guest appearances at music festivals in Rome, London, Bratislava, Salzburg and Lucerne, in Stresa, Ascona, Montreux, Schwetzingen, Ludwigsburg and Weilburg, and at the Carinthian Summer Festival, Schleswig-Holstein Music Festival and Rheingau Music Festival.