From the press
STUTTGARTER ZEITUNG 2022
HOW DO YOU MAKE THE WORLD SOUND ?
From the Kulturhaus in Wangen to the biggest concert stages in the world. The incredible story of the Stuttgart “Orchestra of Cultures
Stuttgart/Rome/ Saint Petersburg
Maybe you start in the alleys of Rome, the eternal city:
In the evening, when the crowds near the Fontana di Trevi lose themselves in the alleys smelling of grilled seafood, the last bars of a concert can be heard from the courtyard of a palazzo:
Yasemin Sannino, singer, half from Naples and half from Istanbul, beguiles the audience with her warm, deep voice, when Adrian Werum, the musical director of the Orchestra of Cultures in the audience asks his Roman friend Aluei to introduce him to the singer.
Almost 3000 km away and just a few days later go the last lights go out in the Musical Comedy Theater in Saint Petersburg: in one of the most beautiful places in the city, opposite the Russian Museum. Oksana Voytovich has just starred in “Hollywood Diva,” the new musical by Adrian Werum that won the coveted “Golden Mask” award for best new Russian musical.
After the show, they still rehearse together on the melody of the song “Für mein neues Vaterland”, which conveys the message of the Orchestra of Cultures like probably no other:
“I sing for my new fatherland, I sing for all who live here”.
One could almost think it would be the perfect contemporary adaptation of Beethoven’s “Ode to Joy”.
When Adrian Werum founded the Orchestra of Cultures in 2010, he could not yet have imagined the wide circles this orchestra would draw, which at that time began its history with the first Concert in the Kulturhaus Arena in Wangen began.
What he had triggered gradually became clear to him with the reactions to “Symphony of Our Lives,” the first musical of the Orchestra of Cultures, which they premiered in the Sindelfingen Stadthalle with the support of the Sindelfingen Civic Foundation and Daimler AG.
A sold-out house for days with an audience that could not have been more mixed: the many-headed Iraqi family that had just fled sat next to the older couple from the long-established middle class.
And when Joachim Schmidt emotionally opened the evening on behalf of the Civic Foundation, it became clear to everyone: the fate of the refugees of yesteryear, millions of whom had to leave their homes in the Sudetenland, Silesia, Pomerania and East Prussia, was united in a wonderful way with the people who were now newly arriving in the country.
Mohamad Habbal: “With my wife and two daughters, we crossed the mountains between Iran and Turkey on foot. In the summer of 2016, Adrian Werum came to our first accommodation in Weil im Dorf because he had heard about my voice from friends. It’s been an unbelievably beautiful experience for me to sing in this orchestra ever since.”
Adrian Werum: “When I saw Mohamad’s video of “Jordan is looking for the Superstar”, I was thrilled: an Arab Pavarotti! There’s no other way to put it.”
All these artists will now come together in Stuttgart, when on 22.9. the curtain rises in the Beethoven Hall of the Liederhalle for the release concert of “A World Symphony”, the new CD of the Orchestra of Cultures.
One can be curious how the Orchestra of Cultures wants to make the world sound. The song “Spirit of One” from the new album gives an indication of this:
Adrian Werum: “Spirit of One” describes how we are all united by a core of humanity that is independent of culture, religion and society. Making this unifying element resound is our noblest and most beautiful task.”