DESCRIPTION:
Andreas Schaerer’s “Hildegard Lernt Fliegen”: Andreas Schaerer voice | Benedikt Reising saxophone, clarinet | Matthias Wenger saxophone, flute | Andreas Tschopp trombone, tuba | Marco Müller double bass | Christoph Steiner percussion, marimba | LUCERNE FESTIVAL ACADEMY Orchestra | Mariano Chiacchiarini conductor

“The Big Wig”
The LUCERNE FESTIVAL ACADEMY meets Hildegard Lernt Fliegen

If you think the LUCERNE FESTIVAL ACADEMY is devoted exclusively to New Music – that is, with the big “N” – think again. In the LUCERNE FESTIVAL Lounge series the Academy students regularly bridge the gap between different musical styles and forms. Now they go one step further and join forces with one of the most exciting Swiss bands around, the sextet Hildegard Lernt Fliegen, which is led by the brilliant vocal acrobat Andreas Schaerer. The latter explains what thrills him about this collaboration: “Our capacities are exhausted. We all have more instruments on stage than we can take home in the evening. But Hildegard’s music keeps pushing ahead, demanding more and more, more strings, horns, and drums.” An orchestra is therefore a must for Hildegard to learn to fly anew: “high up in the air, in the direction of the sun, exactly where wax starts to get dangerously soft.” And so, joining with this year's Academy participants, Hildegard Lernt Fliegen presents the world premiere of an hour-long orchestral work in six movements which was commissioned by LUCERNE FESTIVAL.