amarcord - Meisterklasse (2022)

He holds the record of the Gewandhaus Kapellmeister: he headed the orchestra for 35 years. He was also valued as a pianist and composer and shaped generations as a piano and composition teacher at the Leipzig Conservatory for 42 years. Carl Reinecke (1824-1910) is one of the most influential artists in the music city of Leipzig. amarcord is dedicated to him and his master class on his album of the same name: "Meisterklasse - Carl Reinecke und seine Schüler" (release: April 22, 2022, edition apollon / Raumklang).

Reinecke's oeuvre for male voices alone allows the Leipzig quintet to draw from the full: there are over 70 individual works to be discovered. The singers selected six of them and linked them to works by his composition students. Among them are European greats such as Edvard Grieg, Max Bruch, Leoš Janáček, Mikalojus Konstantinas Čiurlionis or Ethel Smyth, who was the only woman admitted to Reinecke's class up to that point and who wanted to break into the male domain with great motivation. But the listener not only gets to know composers such as Sveinbjörn Sveinbjörnsson, Arthur Sullivan or Charles Villiers Stanford on the album, but also learns valuable biographical details thanks to the extensive booklet.

In 2022, amarcord is celebrating its 30th ensemble anniversary with several top-class concerts in Leipzig (e.g. with Daniel Hope, German Hornsound, Nils Mönkemeyer) and with this new production shows another facet of the music city worth hearing and its European radiance in the 19th century. After the US tour in March/April, the amarcord singers are preparing for their own a cappella festival in Leipzig (April 22-30). In the anniversary year, the ensemble will also be making guest appearances at the Bayer Kultur stARTfestival (Leverkusen), German Choir Festival in Leipzig, ehinger musiksommer, Aequinox Festival, mdr Musiksommer, the Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania Festival and at festivals in Denmark, the Netherlands and Poland.