Ensemble SurPlus Documentation

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The musicians of Ensemble SurPlus, together with their audiences, the composers,
and radio- and CD-listeners can look back on three seasons, in which Ensemble
SurPlus has expanded its activities and broadened its horizons.
Alongside their first guest appearances at Harvard-University, Boston, in Ecuador
and Korea, long standing institutional cooperation and international commitments
were maintained. Not only renewed invitations to Buffalo/New York, the home of one
of the leading festivals for new music in North America, but also the summer courses
at the Academy “Schloss Solitude“ in Stuttgart, run by an internationally acclaimed
group of composers were on the ensemble‘s programme. At the same time, activities
in Freiburg, where the ensemble is based, have been undergoing continuous
development. The pedagogically orientated projects such as workshops, lecture
concerts, discussion concerts have been intensified, not only targeting the expert
audience, but also a broad circle of recipients, for instance pupils at secondary
school or young instrumentalists, participating in a competition. Live recordings of
concert performances were broadcasted by “Südwestrundfunk“ and
“Deutschlandradio Kultur“.
The Ensemble also gained support from regional institutions, such as the
Cultural Office Freiburg and the Regional Council of Freiburg, from nationally
orientated institutions like the National Culture Foundation, as well as special support
for international activities by the Foreign Office (Goethe Institut). In 2010, the
ensemble received an award from the Ernst-von-Siemens Music Foundation with the
purpose of commissioning compositions for the ensemble - the works by Prof. Dieter
Mack (Musikhochschule Lübeck) and Prof. Claus-Steffen Mahnkopf
(Musikhochschule Leipzig) will be premiered 2012 at the anniversary concert in
celebration of 20 years of Ensemble SurPlus in Freiburg, the compositions by Prof.
Daniel Biró (Vancouver, Canada) will be premiered January 19th, 2013 in Toronto.
In the above mentioned activities, Ensemble SurPlus remained true to its
ideals - particularly by choosing outstanding works and concepts, regardless of the
possible difficulties. They thus not only overcame exceptional technical challenges
but have also developed a fresh approach to their performance modalities - on one
hand, performing under renowned guest conductors and on the other, rehearsing
extremely ambitious compositions either completely without a conductor or with an
ensemble member conducting. In addition to the actual rehearsing and performing,
the musicians themselves have deepened their pedagogical, musicological and
concert-didactical activities, and have hence contributed to the intensive cooperation
with institutions and musicians in Freiburg and beyond.

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