AUDI AG 
By Jan 20, 2014
Conductor Kent Nagano is set to present his own festival during the Audi Summer Concerts as from this year. As Artistic Director of the "Vorsprung-Festival", Nagano will be responsible for five performances. In all the Audi Summer Concerts will offer a varied programme of music during 15 concerts held in Ingolstadt and the region between 25 June and 28 July. Performers will include internationally acclaimed artists such as Cameron Carpenter and Piotr Beczala as well as the company's ensembles, namely the Audi Youth Choir Academy and the Audi Philharmonic Wind Ensemble.
The involvement of Kent Nagano marks the engagement of a conductor who is in global demand. During the next three years, Nagano will present his own "Vorsprung-Festival" as part of the Audi Summer Concerts. As Artistic Director of the festival within a festival, he will put his signature to five of the fifteen concerts. He has secured artists he knows personally, such as tenor Ian Bostridge and pianist Rudolf Buchbinder, and will furthermore conduct three of the concerts himself.
"The cooperation with Kent Nagano is a stroke of good fortune for us. We have been presenting the Audi Summer Concerts at our Ingolstadt location for almost twenty-five years now. This is the first time that we have engaged a globally sought-after conductor, Kent Nagano. During our long-term cooperation, he will make our summer festival even more exciting from a musical perspective," reported Dr. Frank Dreves, Member of the Board of Management for Production at AUDI AG.
"It is with pleasure that I look forward to the cooperation with Audi Sommerkonzerte over the upcoming 3 years. Within the idea of a "festival within a festival" the resulting "Vorsprung-Festival" will present the Audi Jugendchorakademie in residence alongside renowned artists and ensembles of international stature in an intensive period of concert, masterclass and workshop activities all open to the public.
It is rare that a leading industrial company will make such a commitment into helping to form and develop society's next generation and we can all look forward to this celebration of glimpsing our future via the interface between technique and art," explained Kent Nagano, who will take up the position of General Director of Music at Hamburg City Opera in 2015.
An important component of the partnership with Kent Nagano will be close involvement with the Audi Youth Choir Academy. In fact, the choir already has experience of working with the conductor. In addition to a concert at the Vatican before the Pope in 2011, last year the youth ensemble recorded a CD under the baton of Nagano. It will be released at the beginning of the Audi Summer Concerts by the Farao classics label. During the Summer Concerts 2014, the Audi Youth Choir Academy will perform Mahler's Symphony No. 2 (the "Resurrection Symphony") as well as Dvo
