Konzert: Friday, 19.03.2027, 7:30 pm, Germanisches Nationalmuseum Nürnberg

Eckart Runge, Cello & Jacques Ammon, piano

Program
The program will be available shortly.

“Opium – The Light and Shadow of the 1920s”
The 1920s: an era of intoxication and fear, of new beginnings and approaching catastrophe – and one of the most fertile periods in music history. Gershwin, Weill, Eisler, Korngold, Mahler, Ravel, Satie and others composed works that captured this inner conflict, before many were driven into exile. Cellist Eckart Runge and pianist Jacques Ammon bring this music to the stage with irresistible energy and depth – an evening that celebrates and mourns the spirit of the Roaring Twenties in equal measure.

Eckart Runge, Cello

Eckart Runge grew up in several countries in a family of historians and diplomats, receiving his first cello lessons at the age of nine in Prague. He studied with Edmond Baert at the Conservatoire Royal in Brussels and with David Geringas at the Musikhochschule Lübeck. Winner of the Premio Stradivari Cremona (1991), the Deutscher Musikwettbewerb (1994) and the Concours International de Musique Genève (1995), he began an international solo career early on.

As a founding member of the Artemis Quartet, he was active on the world's major stages for over two decades; the quartet's many recordings for Virgin/EMI received numerous awards. In 2019, he set out to pursue his own artistic projects. His solo debut album with the Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester Berlin received the Jahrespreis der Deutschen Schallplattenkritik in 2021.

Since 2024, Eckart Runge & Jacques Ammon have curated their own concert series as Artists in Residence at the Konzerthaus Berlin.

Jacques Ammon, piano

Jacques Ammon was born in Santiago de Chile to German-Chilean parents. He first attracted attention in 1989 as First Prize winner of the International Claudio Arrau Piano Competition, and has since performed in concert halls from Vienna to Tokyo, Amsterdam to Paris. His close collaboration with violinist Daniel Hope has produced several recordings for Deutsche Grammophon. Since 2015 he has been professor of piano at the Hochschule für Musik und Theater «Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy» in Leipzig. The Runge & Ammon duo was founded in 1996 and celebrates its 30th anniversary this year.