Peter Neumann has attracted the attention of the international music scene through immaculate performances by his ensembles, the Cologne Chamber Choir and the Collegium Cartusianum. These performances primarily included the Passions by Johann Sebastian Bach, the Mass in B minor, the Christmas Oratorio and the cantatas of the Cantor of St. Thomas Church in Leipzig.
An excerpt from the jury's decision reads as follows: "Peter Neumann is one of the exceptionally versatile conductors of the modern era. His repertoire extends from works written at the end of the 16th century (Monterverdi) and during the Romantic period right up to the 20th century (Bartók and Janáček). [...]. He has always regarded historical performance practice as a guiding principle when making music; however, he has never considered it to be an orthodox set of rules. Neumann has shown how music can be performed vitally with historically reflected treatment of vocal line: with esprit, a sense for sound and beauty of sound and always accompanied by a special love of musical detail."
The members of the jury include leading representatives of the music scene in Leipzig: Prof. Dr. Dr. h. c. Christoph Wolff, Dr. Elmar Weingarten, Prof. Georg Christoph Biller (retired Cantor of St. Thomas), Prof. Ulf Schirmer (Director of Leipzig Opera), Riccardo Chailly (Gewandhaus Music Director) and Prof. Robert Ehrlich (Rector of the Leipzig Academy of Music and Theatre).
Dedication to Bach's music
Peter Neumann, who spent many years as a church musician at the Carthusian Church in Cologne and as the Organ Professor at the Cologne Conservatory of Music, has primarily made a name for himself through his interpretations of the works of Bach, Handel, Mozart and Brahms.
With the Cologne Chamber Choir, the Collegium Cartusianum and the Cologne Carthusian Choir, Neumann has performed the masterworks of oratorical and also occasionally symphonic literature at music centres in Europe and Japan, and during well-known festivals. These works ranged from Monteverdi's Vespers of the Blessed Virgin in the Palais Garnier in Paris and J. S. Bach's Passions and Mass in B minor (BBC Proms) through to Dvořák's Requiem (Folle Journée Nantes) and Debussy's Le Martyre de Saint Sébastien at the Music Triennale in Cologne.
As a guest conductor, Peter Neumann gave concerts, for example, with the ChorWerk Ruhr, the Dutch Chamber Choir, the SWR Vocal Ensemble in Stuttgart, the NDR Choir, the Schola Cantorum in Tokyo, the Concertgebouw Orchestra in Amsterdam, the Jerusalem Symphony Orchestra, the Young German Philharmonic and Concerto Cologne. He attracted special attention with his complete recordings of Mozart's Masses on the EMI label, the Musical Vespers of Schütz, Schumann's Missa sacra (Diapason d'Or) and J. S. Bach's St. John Passion.
Bach Festival in the canon of great music festivals
The Leipzig Bach Festival is a well-established event in the canon of great music festivals and is defined both by the reference to Bach's historical places of work in Leipzig and cooperation with the great local traditional ensembles, St. Thomas Choir and the Gewandhaus Orchestra.
The broad programme spectrum of the Leipzig Bach Festival mainly reflects the religious, secular and chamber music oeuvre of the major composer and his different connections with the music city of Leipzig. This season the motto of the Bach Festival is "So glorious you stand, dear city!"
On the occasion of the important anniversary "1000 years of the first documentary mention of Leipzig" musical works will be performed up until 21 June 2015. These works were written in Leipzig or are directly connected to the city's constantly pulsating musical life.
Previous prize winners
A large number of creative artists were honoured in the past for their special commitment to the cultivation of Bach's music:
- Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin (2014),
- Peter Schreier (2013),
- Masaaki Suzuki (2012),
- Herbert Blomstedt (2011),
- Philippe Herreweghe (2010),
- Frieder Bernius (2009),
- Hermann Max (2008),
- Nikolaus Harnoncourt (2007),
- Ton Koopman (2006),
- Sir John Eliot Gardiner (2005),
- Helmuth Rilling (2004) und
- Gustav Leonhardt † (2003)
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