Music
Hamburg State Opera is a leading opera company. Its orchestra is the Philharmoniker Hamburg. The city's other well-known orchestra is the North German Radio Symphony Orchestra. The main concert venue is the Laeiszhalle, Musikhalle Hamburg, pending completion of the new Elbe Philharmonic Hall. The Laeiszhalle also houses a third orchestra, the Hamburger Symphoniker. György Ligeti and Alfred Schnittke taught at the Hochschule für Musik und Theater Hamburg.
Since the German premiere of Cats in 1985, there have always been musicals running in the city, including The Phantom of the Opera, The Lion King, Dirty Dancing, and Dance of the Vampires. This density, the highest in Germany, is partly due to the major musical production company Stage Entertainment being based in the city.
Hamburg is the birthplace of Johannes Brahms, who spent his formative early years in the city. Hamburg was also the birthplace and home for famous waltz composer Oscar Fetrás who wrote the well-known "Mondnacht auf der Alster" waltz.
Prior to the group's initial recording and subsequent widespread fame, Hamburg provided residency and performing venues for The Beatles from 1960 to 1962. Hamburg has produced a number of pop musicians. Identical twin brothers Bill Kaulitz and Tom Kaulitz from the rock band Tokio Hotel live and maintain a recording studio in Hamburg, where they recorded their second and third albums, Zimmer 483 and Humanoid. Singer Nena also lives in Hamburg. There are German hip hop acts, such as Fünf Sterne deluxe, Samy Deluxe, Beginner and Fettes Brot. There is a substantial alternative and punk scene, which gathers around the Rote Flora, a squatted former theatre located in the Sternschanze. Hamburg is famous for an original kind of German alternative music called Hamburger Schule ("Hamburg School"), a term used for bands like Tocotronic, Blumfeld, Tomte or Kante.
The city was a major centre for heavy metal music in the 1980s. Helloween, Gamma Ray, Running Wild and Grave Digger started in Hamburg. The industrial rock band KMFDM was also formed in Hamburg, initially as a performance art project. The influences of these and other bands from the area helped establish the subgenre of power metal.
Hamburg has a vibrant psychedelic trance community, with record labels such as Spirit Zone.
Read more about this topic: Hamburg, Culture and Contemporary Life
Famous quotes containing the word music:
“And in the next instant, immediately behind them, Victor saw his former wife.
At once he lowered his gaze, automatically tapping his cigarette to dislodge the ash that had not yet had time to form. From somewhere low down his heart rose like a fist to deliver an uppercut, drew back, struck again, then went into a fast disorderly throb, contradicting the music and drowning it.”
—Vladimir Nabokov (1899–1977)
“Great music is that which penetrates the ear with facility and leaves the memory with difficulty. Magical music never leaves the memory.”
—Thomas Beecham (1879–1961)
“Yes; as the music changes,
Like a prismatic glass,
It takes the light and ranges
Through all the moods that pass;”
—Alfred Noyes (1880–1958)