More than 1,500 Saudi music lovers gathered at the King Fahd Cultural Center last April 27 and 28, 2018 to attend two Saudi-German music events. Both concerts were presented by Cultural Activities, a General Culture Authority Initiative, and organized in cooperation with the German Embassy in Riyadh.
The musical events highlighted the ben- efits of bridging German and Saudi culture through the uni- versal language of music. His Excellency Mr. Dieter Haller, Ambassador of Germany to Saudi Arabia said, “Music is an international, language and we listened to an extraor- dinary Saudi-German Jazz Fusion Concert. I would like to thank whole-heartedly the General Culture Authority and I hope this is the start of a successful future cooperation. The musicians have shown how much Saudis and Germans can achieve together and I would like to see this group per- forming also in Berlin.”
The first night saw a Saudi-German Jazz Band composed of Saudi musicians Mohammad Mahmoud Hakeem and Sultan Abdulmohsin Alfard and German musicians Brigitta Flick, Max Andrzejewski and James Banner serenading the audi- ence with free jazz improvisation on musical themes orig- inating from Europe and Saudi Arabia. It is the first fusion concert of its kind in Saudi Arabia.
The second night featured the Cologne Academy Orchestra under the conductor Michael Alexander Willens. The group played the works of German composers Wagner. Beetho- ven and Brahms. After the romantic opening orchestral piece “Siegfried Idyll” by Richard Wagner, the concert aria “A Perfido” by Ludwig van Beethoven with soloist Johan- na Winkel was received passionately by the audience. The evening concluded with Johannes Brahms’ Serenade N° 1, another romantic orchestral piece. The orchestra then played in Dammam on April 29 and at the Jeddah Corniche on April 30.
