Caribbean nights and ravel pleasures: Start Festival 2025 in Leverkusen!

Caribbean nights and ravel pleasures: Start Festival 2025 in Leverkusen!

Leverkusen is preparing for a creative highlight: the start festival 2025, which begins on April 26, 2025, promises a comprehensive cultural experience. The opening is celebrated with a "Caribbean night" and Latin American rhythms, which also heats up the anticipation for the festival. A total of 16 concerts and demonstrations will take place in the recreational house in Wiesdorf by the end of June 2025, which cover a wide range of music concerts to dance to ballet and operettas.

tickets are already available in advance and are an attractive price-performance ratio compared to the numerous events in the Kulturaus. Adults pay 22 euros, while children and adolescents only have to pay 5 euros for admission. Students can even benefit from a 50% discount.

A look at the musical diversity

The festival not only offers a platform for local artists, but also devotes itself to important composers in music history. This year the 150-year return of Maurice Ravel's birthday is celebrated. Ravel, known as Dandy, anarchist and "city indianer", is considered a central figure of French music around the turn of the century.

his works have been both admired and controversial. Ravel was known to combine new rhythms and harmonies with traditional forms, which was often held up as a mistake in composition competitions. He described one of his best -known works, the "Bolero", as a "simple instrumentation exercise".

As part of the festival, a poetic journey into the world of Maurice Ravel is presented, with Christoph Karg, Ulrike Payer on the piano, Dominique Horwitz as a reciter and the Aris Quartet. The planned works include:

• à la Manière de Chabrier
• vocalise
• string quartet f major op. 35
• cinq mélodies populaires grecques
• Valses Nobles et Sentimentales No. 1: Modéré - Très Franc
• Le Tombeau de Couperin (No. 1: Prélude, No. 2: Fugue, Sérénade Grotesque)
• pavane pour une infante défunte
• "Kaddish" from "Deux Mélodies, Hébraïques"

The participants, including outstanding talents such as Christiane Karg (soprano) and the members of the Aris Quartet, promise a captivating performance. The ticket prices for these special events are 22 euros for adults and 5 euros for children, plus advance books.

The number of events and the range of the listed music styles testify to the diversity and cultural wealth that the starting festival 2025 brings to Leverkusen. The city and the organizations that support the festival rely on an unforgettable time for all visitors.