Program Book - Wernigerode 2017

Grußworte / Greetings
11
I heartily welcome competitors and guests of
the 10 th International Johannes Brahms Choir
Festival & Competition here in our “colourful
town beneath the Harz”, aware as we are of
all we owe especially to the musical tradition
of Saxony-Anhalt. This is now the tenth time
that the town of Wernigerode, in cooperation
with the cultural association INTERKULTUR
e.V., has organized this festival and competition,
enriching thereby the cultural life of the
entire Harz region and regions far beyond.
This has all required a huge amount of effort
and commitment from volunteers, to whom I
wish here to express my sincerest thanks.
Johannes Brahms left, with his quintessentially
European music, an enduring mark
on the 19 th Century. He himself liked to characterize
his own work as “music written to
last”. How right he was in this is shown by
the enormous international resonance that
this Brahms Choir Festival & Competition has
been enjoying ever since 1999.
Music possesses a special power of binding
people together. It is the spirit of music itself
that makes, out of different people with their
different voices, a choir, and thus a commonly
and communally produced work of art.
And it is the interaction between artists and
audience that gives rise to an especially deep,
especially relevant, and always authentic
form of reception.
There are, then, many reasons to look forward
to all of the events that make up the
10 th International Johannes Brahms Choir
Festival & Competition. I wish success to all
competing participants and to the guests I
wish an unforgettable cultural experience
here in Wernigerode.
Dr. Reiner Haseloff