Conductor and composer David Philip Hefti, winner of the ICMA Composer Award 2023, is Composer in Residence at this year’s Zermatt Music Festival, where he will present his new octet Des Zaubers Spuren, commissioned by the festival for the Scharoun Ensemble, among other works. The festival was founded in 2005 by the Scharoun Ensemble of the Berliner Philhamoniker and built around an orchestral and chamber music academy.
« Already during my music studies, I often performed Schubert’s Octet as a clarinetist. Since then, I have encountered it repeatedly and therefore I was delighted to be able to compose a new work for the 40th anniversary of the Scharoun Ensemble Berlin in my role as Composer in Residence at this year’s Zermatt Music Festival. To base my new octet « Des Zaubers Spuren » on Schubert’s masterpiece and to compose it for one of the best ensembles inspired me. I am looking forward to working on and premiering my octet with these gifted musicians at the foot of the Matterhorn », says David Philip Hefti.
As Composer in Residence, Hefti will be featured in various concert formats. In addition to rehearsing and conducting concerts with the Scharoun Ensemble and the Zermatt Festival Orchestra, as well as other concerts featuring works by Hefti, this will include work with the academy’s musicians. On two concert evenings, the young musicians of the Zermatt Music Academy will perform Hefti’s Gallicinium « Musik zur vierten Nachtwache » for wind quintet and Monumentum for string sextet.
On 27 September, the German premiere of the commissioned work Des Zaubers Spuren will take place on the occasion of the Scharoun Ensemble’s 40th anniversary concert at the Berlin Philharmonie.
