Frankfurt Europa Open Air: With Eintracht anthem to the concert finale | hessenschau.de
This is what a perfect summer evening in Frankfurt looks like. More than 12,000 people enjoyed the open-air concert by the Frankfurt Radio Symphony Orchestra and Big Band on the banks of the Main. Emotional highlight of the evening: a cult song with goosebumps guaranteed.
Queues of visitors had already formed in front of the entrance to the Weseler Werft site in the early afternoon. Packed cool boxes, picnic blankets, folding chairs – the fans of the Frankfurt Europa Open Air from Frankfurt Radio Symphony Orchestra and the European Central Bank (ECB) know what you need for a successful concert evening in the open air.
hr-Bigband and Kinga Głyk really get things going
The Hessian Radio Symphony Orchestra has given this open-air concert for the seventh time. Due to the pandemic, the event had to be canceled in the past two years – now also the brilliant restart with the best late summer weather.
From 6 p.m. the traditional first highlight was the hr big band under the direction of Jörg Achim Keller. The 25-year-old electric bass player Kinga Głyk will be on stage as a guest musician. Big band leader Keller packed titles from their current album “Feelings” into soulful arrangements – the perfect start to a chilled evening.
If you know the 25-year-old Pole from her YouTube videos, you’ll probably see around three million views to have, one wonders how fast fingers can fly over an instrument. Experiencing this live makes the audience enthusiastic after the first bars. For about an hour it was “All About That Bass” – the concentrated load of bass guitar, played virtuously – accompanied by rousing big band sound.
Funky, groovy, with jazz elements and then again tender and dreamy – Kinga Głyk showed the whole range of her skills – including a small singing exercise for the audience. The bass player described the Europa Open Air experience and her collaboration with the hr big band as an “amazing experience”. She revealed that she had never played in front of so many people before. If you missed the performance, here is the recording:
Display external content from YouTube (video)?
Here is content recommended by our editors YouTube (Videos). Since you have deactivated Javascript in your browser, it cannot be displayed here. The following link opens the content on the provider’s website.
Open YouTube (video) content
End of internal content
settings
From guest to chief conductor: Alain Altinoglu
After a one-hour conversion break, that was it Frankfurt Radio Symphony Orchestra his performance – under the baton of his chief conductor Alain Altinoglu. For him, the concert evening at the Wesel shipyard must have been a déjà vu experience. At the Europa Open Air 2019, Altinoglu was a guest conductor and possibly felt “like at a rock concert” at the time. Classical music in the open air with thousands of spectators is not everyday life, even for experienced conductors.
This time around 11,000 people had gathered on the site, together with the spectators on the southern bank of the Main, on boats, bridges and the surrounding balconies, around 12,500 music lovers are likely to have listened on site. “We missed you so much,” said Altinoglu after the orchestra had played the overture of Giuseppe Verdi’s “The Power of Destiny”. The first place of the musical trip to Europe was Italy. “We’re playing a European program today because we’re in Frankfurt, in the heart of Europe.”
Exceptional talent captivates the audience
It continues with Frédéric Chopin’s Piano Concerto No. 2, with the 18-year-old Yoav Levanon playing the piano, who must be described as an exceptional talent. Altinoglu’s first encounter with the young pianist? “I have him in Internet Seen.” This is how talent screening works in 2022.
Hearing a pin drop outdoors would be next to impossible, but the 18-year-old’s soft yet intense playing, which left the audience holding their breath, could have been a work of art. Levanon delivered straight, no frills, all in all calmly and with apparent ease, so that the audience jumped up from camping chairs and picnic blankets with enthusiasm.
“I love you Frankfurt”, Levanon shouted beaming and forming a heart with his fingers to the roaring crowd. He would like to give a concert of this magnitude every day, he admitted after his committed performance of the encore of Franz Liszt’s “La Campanella”.
Fast-paced finale with a surprise at the end
Appropriately for a cozy summer night, there was “Trois Nocturnes” by Claude Debussy – light as a feather, dreamily lost and like elves, accompanied by a women’s choir from the Frankfurter Kantorei, the Cäcilienchor Frankfurt, the Figuralchor Frankfurt and the Frankfurter Singakademie. The finale is approaching with the suite for orchestra by Mieczysław Weinberg. “Passion, love, romance and a furious gallop,” is how hr presenter Susann Atwell announced the five-part work.
So the audience actually got a little something to sway and merrily see-saw along at the end of the official program. Brahms Hungarian Dance No. 6 as the first encore made the audience jump along. That was all very nice up to that point, but the emotional highlight of the evening was yet to come. One could have guessed it when conductor Altinoglu pointed out at the beginning of the concert that Frankfurt is located in the heart of Europe.
Frankfurt – that’s how it was in the heart of Europe
Then in Frankfurt, with the Frankfurt Radio Symphony, there is not only a world-class orchestra, but also a football club that travels throughout Europe. And so, at the end, the Eintracht anthem “Im Herzen von Europa” sounded – with orchestra, choir and karaoke text for the audience to sing along on the screens. And that couldn’t be bitten twice and smashed along at the top of their lungs. Can an evening end better? Did you miss this? Here is the recording of the event:
Display external content from YouTube (video)?
Here is content recommended by our editors YouTube (Videos). Since you have deactivated Javascript in your browser, it cannot be displayed here. The following link opens the content on the provider’s website.
Open YouTube (video) content
End of internal content
settings
Broadcast: hr-fernsehen, Hessenschau, August 25th, 2022, 7.30 p.m