100 years of the Dottikon Orchestra Association
The Dottikon Orchestra Association is celebrating its 100th anniversary this year. Founded as an orchestra to frame the church service in the village of 1000 souls at the time, the OVD presents itself as a dynamic symphony orchestra in 2022.
Nadine Lang - The Orchesterverein Dottikon (OVD) enjoys a reputation in Freiamt as an excellent amateur orchestra. The traditional orchestra has been performing as a symphonic ensemble since 1998 and can draw on a broad repertoire of baroque, classical and romantic music. The Orchesterverein Dottikon presents a new program three times a year: In addition to classical symphony concerts, the orchestra also develops projects with choir, chamber music at the castle, serenades in the rose garden and Viennese Heurigen evenings, symphonic church concerts and musical potpourris. The aim is always to deliver a musically valid interpretation.
The Dottikon Orchestra Association was founded in 1922 by the legendary priest and later canon Leopold Seiler. Initially, the association served to embellish and provide musical accompaniment to church services at Easter, Pentecost, Ascension Day, Prayer Day, Christmas and New Year. The parish priest himself gave free violin lessons at the time and knew how to get the people of Dottikon, then a village of 1000 people, interested in orchestral music. Leopold Seiler was not only the founder, he was also the first president and conducted the Dottikon Orchestra Association for 24 years. Kurt Fischer, cellist and also president for many years, also left his mark on the association. He was an active member for over 60 years and built string instruments himself. Some of the musicians play an instrument from the Fischer violin-making workshop.
The association currently has 40 active members aged between 17 and 79. The long-standing concertmaster is the violinist Sonja Jungblut from Hausen. The conductor since 2016 has been the internationally active Roman Brogli-Sacher, who comes from Brugg. He conducted the orchestra of the Hanseatic City of Lübeck from 2000 to 2015. In 2012, the ensemble of Theater Lübeck under the opera direction of Roman Brogli-Sacher was selected for Wagner's The Ring of the Nibelung was awarded the ECHO Klassik in the Music DVD Production of the Year category. From 2012 to 2015, Roman Brogli-Sacher was artistic director of the Hallwyl Castle Opera. He has also been a permanent guest conductor of the orchestra and theater in Verona since 2012 and chief conductor of the Jiangsu Symphony Orchestra in Nanjing, China, since 2015. He is also director of the Lake Zurich Youth Symphony Orchestra.
To mark its 100th anniversary, the Dottikon Orchestra Association is presenting several major concert projects throughout the year. Romantic spring concerts full of highlights on the first weekend in April in Wohlen, Dottikon and Brugg (see article opposite) marked the beginning.
The next OVD concerts in the anniversary year are the matinee on Sunday, June 12, 11 a.m. at Rosen Huber in Dottikon and the serenade on Sunday, June 19, 3 p.m. at the Pflegi Muri.
This text was written by editor Nadine Lang and first appeared in the Wohler Anzeiger/Bremgarter Bezirks-Anzeiger/Der Freiämter. We were allowed to use the article in a slightly modified form for the SMZ with kind permission.
