Telemania!

Georg Phillip Telemann, whose 1733 publication of “Tafelmusik” inspired the name of our orchestra, lived in the cosmopolitan city of Hamburg for almost 50 years.

A vibrant centre for international shipping and a beacon for refugees from all over Europe, Hamburg’s prosperity and multiculturalism made the city a fertile setting for Telemann’s boundless energy and innovative creativity. He was a people’s composer who loved to create new works for every type of musician, from superstar virtuosi to amateurs making music in the privacy of their own homes.

Telemann’s youthful employment brought him into contact with musicians from all over Europe, and his own experience as a multi-instrumentalist influenced the bold experiments with orchestral colours that have made his orchestral and chamber works so popular with audiences today. Telemann was also an innovator in the worlds of opera and sacred music, and loved to take sacred works out of the churches and into the gathering places of the city. In total, Telemann is estimated to have composed over 3,000 works and was one of the most well-respected composers of his time—the first choice for a coveted job in Leipzig ahead of Johann Sebastian Bach.

In music, projected images, and narration, this new program exploring Telemann’s inspiring life and musical legacy has been designed by Alison Mackay, former Tafelmusik bassist and award-winning creator of The Galileo Project, House of Dreams, and The Leipzig-Damascus Coffeehouse.