Bernd Johannes Wolf
musician / composer
If music be the food of love, play on.
(William Shakespeare)
NEWS
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upcoming concerts:
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Works for piano by und Jazz arrangements after Debussy, Poulenc, Ibert, Satie, Ravel, Milhaud and others, with Jona Kümper,piano, and Bernd Wolf, double bass // Friday, January 12th, 19.30 hrs, and Sunday, January 14th, .2024 , 16 hrs, Kunstwerkstatt am Hellweg, Wattenscheider Hellweg 9, 44869 Bochum-Wattenscheid
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"Suddenly Hip(p) - The Life of Jutta Hipp between Jazz and Art" - Reading from I. Haberkamp's book with music performed by Ilona Haberkamp, saxophone, Jona Kümper, piano and Bernd Johannes Wolf, double bass // January 19th 2024 Bielefeld: https://www.bielefeld.jetzt/node/359808 and January 26th 2024, Hattingen: https://artemedis.ruhr/forstmanns/
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The Messiah - chorus and orchestra of Ruhr University Bochum, January 25th 2024, 19 hrs Audimax
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Rhine Ruhr Philharmonic - works by Lysenko, Mahler und Tchaikovsky (4th Symph.), April 27th 2024, 8pm Hattingen, Gebläsehalle / April 28th 2024, 6pm, Bochum, Anneliese Brost Musikforum
Here is the video cut of the premiere of my chamber opera "Des Bösen gelbe Schwefellichter" - "The yellow sulphur lights of evil" commemorating the pogrom night on November 9th, 1938, in Hattingen on November 12th 2023, with wonderful vocal and instrumental soloists, a powerful experience for everyone present. The work has subsequently been awarded with the Homeland Prize for Hattingen 2023.
The 17th of October 2021 marked the 65th anniversary of the chess “game of the century” between Donald Byrne and Bobby Fischer, spectacularly won by then 13-year-old Bobby Fischer. On this day, in Hattingen-Blankenstein, there was the premiere of my concept piece «Une partie d’échecs» for string quartet, which translates the game into music. My composition was part of a programme with music (Philidor, Rossini, Mendelssohn-Bartholdy) related to the royal game.
Live recording of the premiere on October 17, 2021, in Hattingen-Blankenstein (animation: Jonas Wolf)
In the strange year of 2020, among other things two "Corona" works sprang from my quill, both songs, albeit both of a completely different nature.
The first one was created during the first phase of the first lockdown, soon after the poet Friedrich Hölderlin's birthday - as with Beethoven this year it was his 250th.
It so happened that the Lied duo Inga Balzer (soprano) and Tilman Wolf (piano) launched an online concert series from their home, and thankfully included my setting of Hölderlin's "Come! into the open, friend!" in their programme for the fourth edition of their series, even choosing its title as the programmatic heading for the whole concert.
So here is their performance of my composition as it could be heard and seen in the online concert:
The second is a setting of the poem "This Is Just To Say" by the American poet William Carlos Williams (1883-1963) for soprano and cello.
Here again I am delighted that Chicago-based soprano Josefien Stoppelenburg and cellist Jean Hatmaker have taken a liking to my piece, enough for it to be included in their wonderful project, namely a CD with compositions solely for soprano and cello by composers from around the globe, which was released in October 2021 by Navona Records under the title of Modern Muses and awarded with a Bronze Medal at the Global Music Awards 2022. https://www.navonarecords.com/catalog/nv6377/
"This Is Just To Say"
Et voilà: