Forum Deutscher Musikhochschulen - Aerial Quintett der Robert-Schumann-Hochschule Düsseldorf

In the organizer's words:

The crowning finale of the 2025/26 season at the Forum Deutscher Musikhochschulen will be a concert by the Aerial Quintet from Düsseldorf on June 28, 2026. This young wind quintet - consisting of flute (Eunhyun Chu), oboe (Adrián Verdugo Criado), clarinet (Lucía Cristóbal Melgar), horn (Paula Criado Patricio) and bassoon (Jorge Font Blesa) - was founded at the Robert Schumann University in 2024. All five members share a great passion for chamber music and have already attracted attention individually and as an ensemble by winning competitions and scholarships. For example, the Aerial Quintet 2025 won the renowned Rometsch Competition at the RSH Düsseldorf and received master class tuition from greats such as Prof. Mark Hampson, Prof. Ralph van Daal and Prof. Amy Harman. You can hear this excellence from the very first note: The ensemble sound is remarkably homogeneous, the tuning precise and yet full of joy in playing. 🎶✨

Their program is entitled "From Reicha to Ligeti ... 150 years in the wind quintet" and takes you on an entertaining journey through the eras. Why 150 years in particular? In the early 19th century, Anton Reicha (a contemporary of Beethoven) was one of the first to write works for the then new instrumentation of five wind instruments - he laid the foundation for the wind quintet genre. Around 150 years later, in the middle of the 20th century, composers such as György Ligeti created milestones of modernism for the same instrumentation. In between lies Carl Nielsen's famous quintet from 1922, for example - a romantic-modern masterpiece. All this is reflected in the program: The Aerial Quintet will present one of Reicha's charming classical quintets, full of gallant melodies and lively dialogues between flute, oboe, clarinet, horn and bassoon. We can also look forward to Nielsen's Wind Quintet in A major op. 43 - a piece that makes the most of every color of the five instruments' registers and ends with a solemn chorale in the last movement, which is always a goosebump moment for the audience. Ligeti's "Six Bagatelles" offer an exciting contrast to this, in which modern sounds, quirky harmonies and pulsating rhythms are presented in short musical miniatures - a real listening pleasure that shows how far the language of sound has come in a century and a half. And as if that wasn't enough, the ensemble also takes us back to the Baroque era: with an arrangement of music by George Frideric Handel(perhaps an excerpt from the Water Music or the Fireworks Music, who knows?) in the guise of the wind quintet, they combine the beginnings of orchestral wind music with the quintet tradition.

This program offers not only an overview of the development of the wind sound, but above all a thrilling live experience. You will be amazed at the different moods a wind quintet can create: Sometimes it sounds like a small opera choir, sometimes like a funny bird chirping in the forest, then again like a modern jazz band - that's how versatile the expressive possibilities of the five instruments are. The Aerial Quintet demonstrates all this with technical bravura and palpable enthusiasm. Every entry is spot on, the musical transitions are seamless, and at the same time you can tell that the five musicians enjoy making music together - they "breathe" musically like a single organism.

Look forward to a furioso finale in which all the stops are pulled out once again. This evening combines tradition and innovation, nostalgic sounds and avant-garde, and offers a festive finale to the concert series. You could hardly wish for a better final chord - so come along and experience how the Aerial Quintet ignites a veritable firework of sound for a brilliant finale! 🎉🎵

Price information:

Normal price EUR 6.00 Reduction for pupils, students, trainees EUR 3.00 Gladbeck Card holders EUR 1.50 Optional appointment voucher (minimum purchase of 3 vouchers) EUR 3.50 Ticket prices plus € 1.50 fees