Culture in Dormagen
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Early Music Festival well attended
The final concert in the Knechtsteden Basilica was one of the highlights of the Early Music Festival.
Photo: Georg Salzburg (salt)
Knechtssteden The response to the new formats such as the bike tours on the Rhine and Erft was also great. It was possible to achieve a capacity utilization like before Corona.
It was a real music marathon at the Festival Alte Musik Knechtsteden: The festival presented itself with new formats and a significantly expanded location geography. After ten concerts in the main programme, two musical Movimento bike tours on the Rhine and Erft and the cooperation project “Globe Baroque – Sommeroper im Globe Neuss”, the festival came to an end on Sunday, September 25th. The response was very good. “The occupancy rate was around 90% across all formats and was therefore able to reach the pre-pandemic level again at full capacity,” said spokeswoman Nicola Oberlinger. In addition to the new formats, there were also a number of highlights from the classics, such as the concert “Dixit Dominus – Handel in Rome” or the final concert “Bach in the 19th Century”, to name just two.
A total of five cities were involved with Neuss, Düsseldorf (Benrath), Monheim, Grevenbroich and Dormagen, the Movimento tours each had eight (Erft) and eleven (Rhein) cooperation partners. Four concerts at the Festival Alte Musik Knechtsteden were recorded by Deutschlandfunk and Westdeutscher Rundfunk. In total, more than 160 musicians, including all soloists and ensembles, were involved in the productions.
The new route of “Movimento – The Musical Bike Tour on the Erft” reached around 180 passengers at its premiere on September 25th. The audience was enthusiastic about the “positive sensory overload” through eight short concerts at just as many cultural venues, 28 kilometers by bike through the Lower Rhine landscape with a few stopovers with good food and high-class musical quality.
Managing Director Michael Rathmann: “Even though the culture industry is currently in a state of upheaval, we see ourselves as Festival Alte Musik Knechtsteden well positioned for the future with a mixture of differentiated programme, new formats and audience groups as well as strong partners along a clearly defined brand core”. The festival intends to continue on the path it has taken and further establish the new formats Globe Baroque and Movimento. Planning for next year has already begun: next year the Knechtsteden Early Music Festival will take place from September 15th to 24th. Dates for Globe Baroque and for both Movimento bike tours are currently being coordinated with the project partners.
