'What fireworks of never-before-heard effects! What a plethora of rhythms, colours, sounds and melodies!' enthused jury member Eleonore Büning, after hearing the 24-year-old Simon Höfele's playing at the 2018 German Record Critics' Award, in what happened to be a performance of Ligeti's Mysteries of the Macabre, the same piece the Darmstadt-born trumpeter will be playing at Müpa Budapest.
The young artist was seven years old when he started to study the craft of playing his instrument, and he has since won numerous awards and appeared as a soloist with such ensembles as Amsterdam's Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, the BBC Philharmonic Orchestra, the Berlin's Konzerthaus Orchestra, the Munich Chamber Orchestra and the Mahler Chamber Orchestra. His concert programme will naturally consist primarily of 20th-century works, as the classical composers of previous centuries, despite featuring it in the occasional concerto, did not really make much use of the trumpet in chamber music. The composer of this one of the Rising Stars concerts' unmissable world premières is the Czech Miroslav Srnka: born 44 years ago in Prague, he completed his studies in his homeland and then went on to further hone his skills in Berlin and Paris.
The pianist at the concert, the 31-year-old Estonian Kärt Ruubel, will also be a subject of focus, as he will be performing one solo piece by his countryman Arvo Pärt and another by Prokofiev.
Nominated for the Rising Stars programme by: Konzerthaus Dortmund, Kölner Philharmonie, Elbphilharmonie Hamburg.
Supported by Classical Futures Europe and the Creative Europe Programme of the European Union.