Dessau-Roßlau (dpa/sa) – The international culture festival in honor of the composer Kurt Weill (1900-1950), who was born in Dessau, is dedicated to social and musical changes in 2023. Under the motto “Under the sign of upheaval”, almost 50 events at 16 venues are on the program from February 24th to March 12th, as the organizers announced on Thursday.
The desire to experiment, the search for something new and the detection of literary and musical developments are the focus of the 31st Kurt Weill Festival. Renowned musicians, singers and actors from Germany and abroad create the program. In cooperation with the Bauhaus Dessau Foundation, it was also tailored to the needs of young artists and their audience.
The pianist Sebastian Knauer was won as “artist-in-residence” and thus as a kind of frontman of this year’s festival. Performances by actors Klaus Maria Brandauer and Angela Winkler and jazz greats such as Swedish trombonist Nils Landgren and American singer Jocelyn B. Smith are also planned.
The program includes a journey through time from the 1920s, a time of upheaval and excess as well as profound crises and changes, to the present. “The guests can look forward to a variety of musical highlights for every generation,” explained Thomas Markworth, President of the Kurt Weill Society.
Venues of the festival in honor of the composer Kurt Weill (“The Threepenny Opera”), who was a star on Broadway in New York, are his native town of Dessau and the surrounding area, Halle, Bad Lauchstädt (Saalekreis) and Wittenberg. In 2023, the artistic direction of the festival will be in the hands of the musicologist Constanze Mitter together with the music producer Gerhard Kampf, who has assumed the directorship of the festival for the fifth time.
