COE: Orchestra-in-Residence at the Casals Forum, Kronberg

It was in the evening on 23rd May 2022 that the COE set foot for the first time in the newly-built, not yet open, Casals Forum, a concert hall commissioned by the Kronberg Academy for its students to perform in a hall that truly showcases the outstanding level of music education provided by the Academy. For a number of years, the Chamber Orchestra of Europe and the Kronberg Academy have been working in Partnership, with the COE being invited to perform a number of times in Kronberg, including for the celebration of the Academy’s 25th anniversary in 2018. We are thrilled that this partnership has resulted in an invitation to become orchestra-in-residence at the Casals Forum where we can rehearse ahead of tours as well as perform smaller scale concerts with some of the Kronberg Academy students and teachers.

According to the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, whose reviewer attended our rehearsals with François Leleux in May, the acoustics are very “direct” and “the trills of the Orchestra pearl and sparkle” in the Andante of Mozart’s Symphony KV200. The COE’s second oboe Rachel Frost said about the hall: “The sound is lively, simply wonderful. In this hall, it is possible to play real pianissimos… This hall is warm, round, it sings. It’s beautiful to look at with its light wood and its height.”

The concert hall was officially opened in September 2022 and the COE performed a number of launch concerts for the Friends of the Kronberg Academy and also for the general public on 24^th and 25^th September. Artists performing with the COE on that occasion included Vadim Gluzman, Steven Isserlis, Janine Jansen, Sir András Schiff, Antoine Tamestit, as well as Kronberg Academy alumni and students Irène Duval, Seiji Okamoto, Timothy Ridout and Mishka Rushdie Momen.

For more information about the hall, please visit the Kronberg Academy’s website: https://www.kronbergacademy.de/casalsforum/casals-forum