History
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Immediately after moving to Monthodon into the farmhouse he restored in the early Nineties, Udo Reinemann started the summer masterclasses for singers whose quality rapidly inspired him to add concerts to the training sessions and later to found a festival.
The Festival of the Heures Romantiques first saw the light of day in 1997, succeeded by the Association in the following spring to organise the masterclasses and concerts. In just a few years the Festival became an essential summer event in the region.
From 2011 onward, Udo Reinemann decided to concentrate on passing on his art and the festival became an academy – the Academy of the Heures Romantiques between the rivers Loir and Loire – offering three or four musical seasons organised around the masterclasses. Each season began with one or more Prestige Concerts with invited artists. The masterclasses, involving singers and pianists, ended with a Concert by Budding Performers which enabled artists in training to perform in public and to demonstrate the results of their work.
The sudden death of Udo Reinemann on 14 July 2013 disrupted the Academy after just one spring season. In August, the Prestige Concert initially planned with the Amadis Quartet was able to be held along with a major concert of homage given in Château-Renault in a packed church with a thoughtful audience, bringing together Udo Reinemann’s fellow musicians and former students.
Shortly afterwards, the Association of the Heures Romantiques approved the proposal by Dorian Astor, Charles Fabius and Markus Hadulla to form a new Artistic Committee whose aim would be to preserve and perpetuate Udo Reinemann’s artistic heritage and to continue to offer top quality training to young talented musicians and a programme of exceptional concerts in the region.
The Academy was able to start work in the summer of 2014, in the spirit of the Heures Romantiques: centred around the perpetuation of the art of German Lied and French Melody, it gave audiences in the region the opportunity of hearing prestige concerts by artists who had already gained a reputation and, in the concerts by Budding Performers, the chance to hear young artists destined to pursue a fine career.
The masterclasses are now based in Château-Renault (in the Tannerie Hall which previously hosted them during the spring and autumn seasons). All the participants are housed and live in the town for two weeks, with the support of the Town Hall and the generosity of the people of Château-Renault.
UDO REINEMANN (1942 – 2013)
Udo Reinemann was one of the most brilliant interpreters of Lied of his generation. He was born in Germany and trained at the Academy of Music and Fine Arts in Vienna and at the Mozarteum in Salzburg. He subsequently pursued his training, both vocally and artistically, in Paris with the famous French soprano, Germaine Lubin and with Pierre Bernac. He also was a student of Otakar Kraus in London.
Udo Reinemann chose France as his adopted country in the Seventies and devoted himself with equal enthusiasm to making German Lied and French Melody more widely known. Among the most important milestones in his considerable international career are his winning the Schneider Foundation Prize in Paris and his participation in the production of Britten’s War Requiem to commemorate the Normandy Landings in front of an audience of Heads of State. Udo Reinemann is the epitome of a genuine post-war European artist.
Udo Reinemann appeared in concerts with leading orchestras, such as the Concertgebouw (Jedermann-Monologe by Frank Martin, conducted by Charles Dutoit), the Mai Musical Florentin Orchestra (the Lyric Symphony by Zemlinsky, conducted by Gert Albrecht), the English Chamber Orchestra (Bach and Vivaldi, conducted by Raymond Leppard) and the Radio France New Philharmonic Orchestra (Songs of a wandering companion by Mahler, conducted by Sir John Pritchard). In opera, Udo Reinemann sang a variety of roles such as the Sorcerer in Philidor, Guglielmo in Cosi fan tutti by Mozart, Danielo in the Merry Widow by Lehar as well as leading roles in contemporary works: Nietzsche by A. Clostre and My-Chau-Trong-Thùi, an opera in Vietnamese by N. Dao, commissioned by Rolf Liebermann for the Paris Opera.
In addition to his performances in concert and oratorios, Udo Reinemann gave a number of recitals of Lieder, accompanied by pianists such as Ronald Brautigam, Wilhelm Brons, Ralf Gothoni, Hartmut Höll, Christian Ivaldi, Rudolf Jansen, Noël Lee, Markus Hadulla, Maciej Pikulski, David Selig and Roger Vignoles. He was often invited to appear on television and on radio and took part in two films by François Reichenbach on Schubert and Brahms.
He was always on the look-out for forgotten treasures in the realm of romantic song music and in the Seventies, he founded the Lieder-Quartett, a group that went on a number of tours in Europe and the United States and whose success is reflected in several recordings. In 1987, Udo Reinemann created the Solistes Vocaux d’Utrecht, a group exclusively made up of students of his singing class.
Udo Reinemann was equally active as a teacher at the Academy of Arts in Utrecht, the Conservatoire in Amsterdam, the Royal Academy in London, the Sibelius Academy in Helsinki, Finland, the National Conservatoire in the Region of Metz, the CNR of Toulon and the CNSM of Lyons and on numerous occasions set young singers onto the path of a promising career. At the Conservatoire in Brussels in 2007, Udo Reinemann founded a class for the interpretation of Lied: every month in parallel to his classes masterclasses are given by leading names in this repertory. Many of the masterclasses given by Udo Reinemann in Amsterdam, Nice, Paris, Prague, Rotterdam, Savonlinna, London, Lucerne, Zürich and the United States bear witness to his reputation as a teacher at international level.
Udo Reinemann founded the “Heures Romantiques between the rivers Loir and Loire” in Touraine in 1997, an international festival of vocal and instrumental chamber music in parallel with an Academy offering masterclasses on the interpretation of Lied and Melody two or three times a year.
In 2009 he was invested with the Legion of Honour by President Valéry Giscard d’Estaing.
Udo Reinemann died on 14 July 2013. His international Lied Class has been continued by the Dutch mezzo-soprano, Christianne Stotijn, one of his former students and now an artist of international renown and the Academy of the Heures Romantiques continues thanks to the closest colleagues of its founder. These efforts to perpetuate the heritage of Udo Reinemann bear witness to the long-lasting influence of this unique teacher and artist on the generations to come.