Sidonie

Ever since their inauguration in 1961, The Magdeburg Sunday Concerts have focused on chamber music. Now, the GSOConsort led by the soprano and artistic director Gudrun Sidonie Otto now presents Advent cantata arias with a single vocal part and the continuo in a duet. These arias belong to a single cantata cycle published by Telemann from the end of 1726 to the end of 1727. Telemann revised the arias for publication; in particular, he worked on the precision of the ritornellos, shortening, redesigning, or rewriting them, or eliminated them entirely.

Spanish rock group Sidonie, comprised of Marc Ros (vocals, guitar, keyboards), Jesus Senra (vocals, bass, sitar), and Axel Pi (drums, percussion), formed in 1997. The group originally assembled to play the hits of their favorite groups, including the Doors, the Velvet Underground, and the Rolling Stones. As the bandmembers put their own personal touch on each song they played, they soon developed a desire to write and record their own material. Demonstrating a variety of influences, Sidonie released their debut CD, Dragonfly. The five-track disc – described as a mixture of psychedelia, Hindu music, surrealism, and Spanish rock rolled into one – was released by the independent Bip Bip Records. The record was well enough received that the band soon had enough clout to record a full-length album.

Centered around the central work of this recording, the Peace Concerto for soprano and organ by the Dutch composer Daan Manneke (*1939), soprano Gudrun Sidonie Otto and cathedral organist Andreas Liebig have compiled an extremely diverse and particularly expressive program, including organ and vocal works by Johann Sebastian Bach, Sofia Gubaidulina, Max Reger, and Julius Reubke. Manneke's Peace Concerto is part of his 2019 Basel Psalms, a commissioned composition for the millennium celebrations of the venerable Basel Minster.