Two festivals in Arosa

Arosa Sounds promises an energetic program from the end of January to the beginning of February. The festival kicks off on Wednesday evening with the Afro Jazz Sextet of the young Bernese singer Malika Kaita. Afrobeat meets bouncy jazz, performed by young and highly motivated musicians. To set the mood, a talk with Malika Kaita on the subject of intercultural musical collaborations will take place before the concert. Singer Andreas Lareida, who grew up in Chur, has woken his old band project "Andreas Lareida Agorà" from its 10-year slumber and will take to the stage as a septet with a new freshness. Ladunna can be described as the Grisons discovery of 2024. Two young women from Romansh combine pulsating rhythms with jazz vocals. The double bassist Marc Jenny plays somewhat quieter music in the Bergkirchli. The festival will conclude with two concerts in the "Bündner Sounds" format: singers Andreas Lareida, Malenco, Anna Bläsi and saxophonist Gianna Lavarini will arrange and rehearse their own compositions with an accompanying band, the result of this collaboration will be presented exclusively at Arosa Sounds.

The motto of this year's Arosa Classical Music Festival is "Voices as guests in Arosa". At the opening, former director of Swiss television Ueli Haldimann and actor Christian Sprecher will give Hermann Hesse a voice. Haldimann has researched Hesse's stays in Arosa in 1928/29 and Sprecher reads from the wonderful texts about skiing and the Arosa sun that Hermann Hesse wrote. The baritone Samuel Zünd is a guest in Arosa with the "Galgenlieder" by Christian Morgenstern. The Swiss conductor and composer Enrico Lavarini has taken on the cheerful, morbid texts. Zünd will be joined on stage by clarinettist Emil Scheibenreif and pianist Nilgün Keles.

"The most important thing is the music you have in your head," said Madame Flo, the imperturbable, self-confident and fabulously talentless soprano. But unfortunately, she sang wrong for pity's sake, the audience loved her anyway and came in droves to be amused by her. The play "SOUVENIR" by Stephen Temperley about Jenkins' career is a wonderfully heart-warming tribute to this legend of American show business. The actress Ute Hoffmann plays Jenkins. Nikolaus Schmid and Marco Schädler are also part of the cast.

While zoologist and museum educator Flurin Camenisch from Chur talks about how animals communicate with each other, the film "Sibel" shows a young woman whose voice has gone silent. She can only communicate to a certain extent by whistling. The film is set in the rugged mountainous region on the Turkish Black Sea coast, where people still speak and cultivate the traditional whistling language.

As in previous years, the winners of the Hans Schaeuble Award will give concerts as part of the Arosa Classical Music Festival. In two groups, they will each prepare a concert program in Arosa, which will be performed not only in Arosa but also in Chur, Boswil and Zurich.

The Arosa Mixed Choir, under the direction of Ursula Müller-Weigl, sings choral passages from well-known operettas at the end of the Arosa Classic Festival. The soloists are mezzo-soprano Stefanie Schaefer and pianist Kristina Ruge.