Regensburg in February

While the city’s annual culture program cycle finds its beginning next month with the Thurn and Taxis Comedy and Theatre Festival, cultural life at the University is already running at full speed. The inauguration concert of the new Chamber Choir, CD releases of the University Big Band and the performance of Mendelssohn’s Paulus-Opus are only a few highlights to be mentioned in this regard. At the same time, numerous theater productions at the University are reaching their peak season. A real cultural boom could also be seen on other stages lately: Namely, at the Tower Theater (Turmtheater), the Academic-Saloon and the Cinema of Film Classics.

Music
The February weather in Regensburg is generally not the best for sightseeing or outdoor activities. Cultural life mostly takes place indoors - in theaters, cinemas and for example, in the Cultural Center Leerer Beutel.
There, top musicians playing all instruments will meet for the third Volvo Big Band Night on February 15th at 8 p.m. Young European composers and arrangers (Stephan Zimmermann, Oli Leicht, Felix Fromm, Ed Partyka und Torsten Maass) will take you on a journey across the New German Songbook on this night.
It will also be the litmus test for the young Regensburg Jazz Orchestra, which was only founded in autumn 2008 and has already performed various concerts with music from big band history (www.jazzorchesterregensburg.de).

Lovers of classical music will have more than one reason to rejoice in 2009. Memorial days for Haydn, Handel, Purcell and Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy will be celebrated this year.
The latter will be commemorated on 3rd February with a concert for his 200th birthday.
On this occasion, the University Symphony Orchestra will play overtures and stage music to Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream, the overture The Hebrides and his violin concerts in d-minor and e-minor. Geoffrey Trabichoff will be the performing soloist and Graham Buckland (University Music Director) will conduct.
For those who can’t get enough of Mendelssohn, the 21st February might offer another tempting musical highlight. At 7 p.m. the great oratory Paulus will be performed by the University Choir and conducted by Christian Kroll (www.unichorregensburg.de). Both concerts will take place in the Audimax Hall of the university.

Stages
The opera Andrea Chenier by Umberto Giordano, which is very rarely performed, has been added to the repertoire of the theater at Bismarckplatz Square in February. Its premiere will be on February 14th.
The elaborate and costly stage show will be realized in collaboration with the South Thuringian State Theater Meiningen and the Opera en el Convento La Palma. Those who miss the premiere will have another chance for this outstanding performance on February 18th and 22nd at 7.30 p.m..

Crazy for even more theater? Maybe a turbulent comedy during the German carnival period?
The tumultuous comedy The Foreigner by Larry Shue, who landed a world hit with Lend me a Tenor, is about an English man in the southern states of the USA and his comic and tragic experiences there – especially his tragicomic experiences.
The international theater group Regensburg University Players (RUP) will perform this piece daily between the 2nd and 7th of February at 7 p.m., in English of course. Where? Performances will be at the University Theater.
More information at www.rups.info.

30.01.09 - online redaktion