Kissinger Sommer
Introduction The Bad Kissingen concert hall "Regentenbau", one of the sites of the "Kissinger Sommer"The '''Kissinger Sommer''' is a classical music festival held every year in the summer in the city of Bad Kissingen in Bavaria, Southern Germany.
History The festival was founded in 1986.At the beginning the focus of the festival was on the improvement of the cultural relations between eastern and western Europe. Every year an east-european country was partner of the festival, beginning with Hungary in 1986.Poland, Czechoslovakia and the Soviet Union followed. So the festival became a place where one could see artists from east and west, especially of the partner-countries and of East-Germany. Among the artists of the first years were  Dmitry Sitkovetsky, Boris Pergamenschikow and  Svjatoslav Richter. After the fall of the iron curtain the festival turned to a world-wide view with partner-countries in whole Europe, North America and China. Every summer around 50 concerts are attracting about 30 000 visitors. The occurring interpreters are a mixture of well-known international stars like Cecilia Bartoli, Arcadi Volodos, Fazıl Say or Grigory Sokolov, and newcomers, who often later have made a great career too, like Lang Lang, Diana Damrau or David Garrett.Director of the "Kissinger Sommer" from 1986 until 2016 was Kari Kahl-Wolfsjäger. Her successor, beginning in 2017, was Tilman Schlömp, formerly artistic director at the festival Beethovenfest in Bonn. He changed the concept of the festival. Instead of partner countries, there are now main topics, starting in 2017 with the motto "1830 – Romantic Revolution" and followed in 2018 by "1918 – emergence of the modern age". The contract of Schlömp ended in 2021.Alexander Steinbeis, previously orchestra director of the DSO Berlin, was appointed as his successor from 2022 on.In 2020 the festival was cancelled because of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Contemporary music From the beginning the festival is also a place for contemporary composers like Alfred Schnittke, Sofia Gubaidulina, Edison Denisov, Aribert Reimann or Wolfgang Rihm. There have been world premieres of composers like Jean Françaix (Dixtuor, in 1987), Krzysztof Penderecki (Sinfonietta No. 2 for clarinet and string orchestra, in 1994) and Fazıl Say (Sonata for clarinet and piano, op. 42, in 2012). Since 2006 composers present themselves and premieres of their music in the workshop ''Bad Kissinger Liederwerkstatt''. Up to 2018, around 80 world premieres have already been produced as part of the Liederwerkstatt. However, there are also world premieres outside the Liederwerkstatt, such as the ''Concerto No. 1 for violin and orchestra'' by Gediminas Gelgotas in 2018 and in 2019 a new version of the opera "Orfeo ed Euridice" by .
Artists in residence Artists-in-residence have been in the last years:* 2014 Ning Feng and Igor Levit* 2015 Igor Levit* 2016 Daniil Trifonov* 2017 Patricia Kopatchinskaja and Vesselina Kasarova* 2018 Sol Gabetta* 2019 Julia Lezhneva* 2020 Jean-Yves Thibaudet (planned, festival cancelled)
Orchestra in residence * 2017–2021 Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen
Luitpold Prize Every year since 1999 the ''Luitpoldpreis'' (Luitpold Prize) is awarded to a young interpreter of the festival. The prize is named after Luitpold, Prince Regent of Bavaria, who let build the great Bad Kissingen concert hall ''Regentenbau'', where many of the concerts of the festival take place. The winners are:*1999 – Nikolaj Znaider, violin*2000 – Alisa Weilerstein, cello*2001 – Jochen Kupfer, baritone*2002 – , soprano*2003 – Baiba Skride, violin*2004 – Jan Kobow, tenor*2005 – Mojca Erdmann, soprano*2006 – Peter Ovtcharov, piano*2007 – Tine Thing Helseth, trumpet*2008 – David Lomeli, tenor*2009 – Igor Levit, piano*2010 – Kejia Xiong, tenor*2011 – Anna Lucia Richter, soprano*2012 – Dmitry Korchak, tenor*2013 – Julia Novikova, soprano*2013 – Konstantin Shamray, piano*2014 – Kian Soltani, cello*2015 – Sung Min Song, tenor*2016 – Andrei Ioniță, cello*2017 – Julian Trevelyan, piano*2018 – , soprano*2019 – , tenor*2020 – not awarded (festival cancelled)*2021 – Sarah Aristidou, soprano*2022 – Lucas & Arthur Jussen, piano*2023 – María Dueñas, violin
Kissinger Klavierolymp The festival is connected to the ''Kissinger Klavierolymp'' (''Kissinger Piano Olympics''), a competition of young pianists which takes place in autumn in Bad Kissingen since 2003.The prize for the winners is a performance at the ''Kissinger Sommer''. Among them are Martin Helmchen, Nikolai Tokarev, Kirill Gerstein, Igor Levit, Alice Sara Ott and Kit Armstrong. Among the last winners are Elisabeth Brauß (2016), Emre Yavuz (2017) and Juan Pérez Floristán (2018).===Recipients=== No. Year  1st place  2nd place  3rd place  Audience Prize 1.2003  Martin HelmchenNikolai Tokarev  Stewart Goodyear  Kirill Gerstein  Mihaela Ursuleasa 2.2004  Alexei Zuev  Igor Levit  Alice Sara Ott  Andrei Banciu        3.2005  Herbert Schuch  Lukas Vondrávcek  Anna WinnizkajaPeter Ovtcharov  Joseph MoogMiroslav Kultyshev 4.2006  Christian Ihle HadlandKit Armstrong  not awarded  Alexej Gorlach  Mona Asuka Ott 5.2007  Vestards Šimkus  Michail Lifits  David Kadouch  Zhang Hai'ou 6.2008  Yeol Eum Son  Olga Scheps  Benjamin Kim  Claire Huangci 7.2009  Kiryl Keduk  Boris Kusnezow  Kateryna Titova  Kiryl Keduk 8.2010  Behzod Abduraimov  Nareh Arghamanyan  Avan Yu  Alexei Grigorjew 9.2011  Konstantin Shamray  Adan Laloum  Pawel Kolesnikow  Pawel Kolesnikow   10.2012  Magdalena MüllerperthDa Sol Kim  not awarded  Beatrice Magnani  Magdalena Müllerperth 11.2013  Chi-Ho Han  Georgy Tchaidze  Aurelia Shimkus  Chi Ho Han 12.2014  Julian Jia  Niu Niu  Boyang Shi  Julian Jia 13.2015  Jorge González Buajasán  Maxim Lando  Clayton Stephenson  Jorge González 14.2016  Elisabeth Brauß  Julian TrevelyanThomas Schuch  not awarded  Nikolay Khozyainov 15.2017  Emre Yavuz  Sergei Redkin  Viktor Soos   16.2018  Juan Pérez Floristán  Martin James Bartlett  Łukasz Krupiński  Martin James Bartlett 17.2019 Tomoki Sakata  Tiffany Poon  Robert Neumann Tomoki Sakata 18.2020 Sergey Tanin  Yoav Levanon  Ziyu Liu  Sergey Tanin 19.2021 Giorgi Gigashvili  Sandro Nebieridze  Gustav Piekut  Giorgi Gigashvili 20.2022  Roman Borisov  Tony Siqi Yun  Ariel Lanyi  Tony Siqi Yun 21.2023  Mihály Berecz  Mirabelle Kajenjeri  Miyu Shindo  Miyu Shindo
References
External links * Homepage "Kissinger Sommer"* Opening concert 2017, Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen