Final concert by Yanir Ritter

Contributors

Program

Edmund von Borck → Concerto for alto saxophone and piano (1932)
Hans Brehme → Sonata for alto saxophone and piano (1932) No. I and III
Erwin Schulhoff → Valse brillante, Dance excentrique (1933)
Werner Wolf Glaser → 3 Sonatas in the old style (1934) No. I and III
Viktor Ullmann → Slavonic Rhapsody (1940) - excerpts

The final concert is the examination of the artistic performance as part of the artistic-scientific doctorate "A Forbidden Voice? Music for Saxophone under the Third Reich" at the Collège Glarean.

This concert presents original works for saxophone written between 1932 and 1940 - a crucial period in which the instrument was transformed from a symbol of artistic freedom and modernity during the Weimar Republic to an increasingly marginalized and stigmatized instrument under the cultural policies of the Third Reich.

With works by Edmund von Borck, Hans Brehme, Erwin Schulhoff, Werner Wolf Glaser and Viktor Ullmann, the program brings together a rarely performed Central European saxophone repertoire marked by modernist experimentation, exile and political repression. These works, which move between chamber music and orchestral thinking, show how composers continued to explore the expressive possibilities of the saxophone at a time when its place in classical musical life was becoming uncertain.

The concert is part of an artistic doctoral project at the College of Music Freiburg and the University campus Freiburg, which examines the role of the saxophone in Germany in the 1930s and 1940s, both as a musical voice and as a cultural symbol of resistance in the ideological context of the time.

Yanir Ritter

Yanir Ritter is an Israeli concert saxophonist who specializes in the classical and contemporary repertoire for saxophone. As a soloist and chamber musician, he has won several international competitions, including the America-Israel Cultural Foundation (AICF), the Ferrera Competition, the Cantarone Competition for Young Soloists and the Salieri-Zinetti Competition.

He has performed with the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra, the Israel Opera Orchestra, the Orchestra of La Scala Milan, the Orchestra dell'Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia (Rome), the Strasbourg Philharmonic Orchestra and La Monnaie (Brussels), among others.

He performs regularly with various chamber ensembles, including the "Aurea Duo" (saxophone and organ), the "No Limit Orchestra", the RE/SONO Saxophone Quartet and the Tel Aviv Saxophone Quartet. In cooperation with the Israeli Ministry of Education, he is involved in projects to promote classical saxophone practice among young musicians in Israel.

He is currently pursuing a joint doctorate at the University of Strasbourg and the College of Music Freiburg as part of the Collège Glarean. His research focuses on the role of the saxophone in Germany in the 1930s and 1940s and its cultural and political significance in this historical context.