DSO’s Orchestra Academy
Today’s gifted young musicians are extremely well trained, technically brilliant, and equipped with artistic curiosity. Experience in orchestral playing, however, can be conveyed only to a limited extent during instrumental studies. To ensure that a musician’s first position in an orchestra is not like being thrown into the deep end, ever more orchestras are taking this task into their own hands.
The Ferenc Fricsay Academy of the Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin has been fostering promising up-and-coming artists since 1992. Ten musicians – each of whom has passed an audition – have the opportunity to get to know from within how a professional orchestra works for two years: they play along at concerts and take part in radio and CD recording sessions.
More than just playing in the orchestra
With violinist Jakob Encke, cellist Leslie Riva-Ruppert and contrabassist Matthias Hendel, three members of the DSO are on hand to help and support the academy scholars in all matters relating to everyday life in the orchestra. Academy scholars also take part in audition workshops and are instructed by the first chairs of the DSO. Chamber music, the best school for sensitive musical communication, also constitutes part of the programme. Jointly with members of the DSO, Ferenc Fricsay Academy scholars present themselves once a year at a chamber concert. In addition, the Academy is anything but a one-way street. Academy participants provide a fresh, new perspective on the repertoire, and their enthusiasm is inspiring.
Ferenc Fricsay – the academy's patron
Ferenc Fricsay was the first principal conductor of the RIAS-Symphonie-Orchester (now DSO), starting in 1948. He made a significant contribution to the development and shaping of musical life in Berlin after the war. Particularly for young musicians at the beginning of their professional career, he was an inspiring personality, as he had unconventional approaches to interpreting the classical and romantic repertoire and demonstrated his pioneering spirit as a sensitive presenter of contemporary music. By founding the orchestra academy, named after him, the promotion of young musicians, one of the Hungarian conductor’s main concerns, was taken up once again.
Apply now
The Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin has free positions in the Orchestra Academy for the following instrumental groups: Violin, viola, cello and double bass.
