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Women's Day Gala Concert in Hamburg Features Orchestral Works by Konstantia Gourzi

Mar. 30, 2025

On March 8, the Bremer Philharmoniker and the Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach Choir Hamburg joined forces under the baton of Hansjörg Albrecht to perform music by female composers in celebration of International Women's Day. Included in the program were two rousing orchestral works by Konstantia Gourzi, including Mondaufgang am Meer, op. 108 and Variation 21, op. 80.

The paintings of Casper David Friederich provided the inspiration behind Gourzi's Mondaufgang am Meer. She notes: "I got to know Casper David Friederich's paintings when I was young in Greece: the colors, the directness, the depth and the overall mood of his paintings magnetized me at first glance. This feeling intensified when I later saw his original paintings for the first time in Berlin. I am thrilled and very moved to be able to write a composition inspired by Caspar David Friedrich's painting "Moonrise by the Sea" for the opening of the Mecklenburg-Vorpommern Festival on the 250th anniversary of his birth.

It has already been said about his paintings that they actually show landscapes of the soul: they have a depth, a magic and a power that seem much greater and more intense than the pure landscape impression."

Of Variation 21, Gourzi explains: "Variation 21 was commissioned by the Bamberger Symphoniker for their »encore!«-project. The piece was originally planned to be performed after Edward Elgar's Enigma Variations, but this turned out differently. Nevertheless, the idea of variation as a musical form occupied me. Above all, I asked myself whether a variation could exist without a predetermined theme and whether the theme could also be the variation in a composition. With Variation 21, I wanted to thematize the leap into the 21st century."


Konstantia Gourzi's Variation 21, performed by the Bamberg Symphony Orchestra, led by Cristian Măcelaru

To learn more about Konstantia Gourzi, visit universaledition.com.

KonstantiaGourzi
Mondaufgang am Meer, op. 108 (2024)
for ensemble or orchestra
0.0.0.0-4.3.3.1-timp-2perc
7'
Preview the score

Variation 21, op. 80 (2022)
for orchestra
2.2.2.2-4.3.3.1-timp-2perc-str
6'
Preview the score

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