What a dance with your loved one is to a club-night with your friends, a chamber music ensemble is to a big orchestra: It might lack the bombast and craziness, but makes up with it by intimacy, detail, and pureness. The music is less controled, but lives in the personal relationships between all musicians, as any impulse of change doesn’t come from a push of the conductor’s arms, but stems from the twinkle in the eyes of another musician, in the depth of her breath, in the way he holds still.
I learned to appreciate the power of chamber music in the Young Westphalian Baroque Ensemble during school. The weekly trips to our rehearsal in Muenster were my first big commute, our concert tours to Brasil and Ecuador my first big journeys. Thus, I was very happy when the altus Philipp Mathmann approached me with his idea to start an ensemble in 2006. We quickly gathered a group of gifted musicians around us to play about 5-10 concerts per year in churches in Cologne, Ibbenbüren, Marienstatt, Münster, and smaller communities around.
Philipp is among the most driven musicians I have ever met, his social skills and willpower forced Symphonia Nova into reality. He is also among the most gifted, with a voice that reaches into the heights of women sopranos. In our concerts, I have seen people moved to tears when listening to his voice, levitating bodiless in the church’s dome, as if woven into the light from its colourful windows, disconnected from the world. Make sure to visit his concerts if possible!
