International Violin Prize winner Leonard Baumgartner in Klein Neusiedl

Klein Neusiedl – On the occasion of the national holiday on October 26, 2024, the Haydn Festival was a guest at the paper mill in Klein Neusiedl. The Vienna ensemble played with American soprano Rebecca Nielsen and violinist Leonard Baumgartner.
The theme of the evening was “Haydn Goes to Broadway.” The festival director, Dr. In the introduction, Michael Lensbauer shows how the two fit together: Haydn and Broadway. The goal is to build a bridge between Joseph Haydn's time and the more recent musical scene, which will occur using famous orchestral melodies and melodies from Gershwin's “Porgy and Bess” to Leonard Bernstein's “West Side Story.” For the audience, the “old” and the “new world” were combined in one evening of music.
The Vienna Ensemble was founded under the direction of conductor Michael Juraszek in Vienna in 2016 and consists of highly talented graduates from Austrian music universities. It is a flexible association of artists that operates in configurations ranging from small orchestras to large symphony orchestras. It is this flexibility that has seen the program range from Joseph Haydn's concertos for violin and orchestra to the arias of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, and the Hungarian dances of Johannes Brahms and Fritz Kreisler to Leonard Bernstein and George Gershwin.
Especially in the more modern part of the programme, it was soprano Rebecca Nielsen who set the tone. She is an important and popular member of the Vienna Volksoper Ensemble and has sung in many international theaters and opera houses. She said in an interview: “I love this challenge! The coordination of these tasks – the peak of physical performance and emotional vulnerability – is for me one of the most enjoyable and rewarding experiences of my life.” She demonstrated this to the audience by playing the trumpet. She not only sang, but also played this wind instrument.
The star of the evening was young violinist Leonard Baumgartner. The 17-year-old has already won several awards. The highlight of his career was winning the Eurovision Young Musicians Competition in August this year, where he made his debut with the Norwegian Radio Orchestra. This award is often compared to the Olympic gold medal for a violinist. At the concert in Klein-Neusiedl, he also showed his versatility: he played Joseph Haydn's Concerto in C major for violin and orchestra, followed by two Hungarian dances from Johannes Brahms to George Gershwin's “Summertime,” and Leonard Bernstein to Paul Anka's “My My.” Way.” And the organizers of the Haydn Festival considered themselves lucky to have hired him even before he received the major international prize.
The ballroom in the former paper mill is sold out to the last seat. The community of Klein-Neusiedl has begun the revival of the largest paper mill in the Vienna region, which was built in the 18th century. New life has come into the abandoned factory and it has become a cultural hotspot in the area. The Haydn Festival takes place in more than a dozen venues in the area surrounding Haydn's birthplace of Rohrau, and for the first time in Klein Neusiedl.
More concerts will follow at Mansdorf Castle (November 10, 2024), at the Kulturfabrik in Hainburg (November 16, 2024), and at Haydn's castle and birthplace in Ruhrau (December 1 and 15, 2024).