Community
Over the past fifteen years, the Concerto21 Summer Academy has established a large network of lecturers and almost two hundred former participants. Today, these include directors of concert halls, festivals and ensembles, agency managers, label managers, graphic designers, psychologists, and many more. Thanks to the Concerto21 Foundation, we can now enrich our network with important players from outside the cultural sector.
Concerto21 Academy
Concerto21 participants can get to know key figures and influential players in the music business - both in seminars and workshops and in the evening informal discussions. The speakers include university professors, directors of concert halls, festivals and ensembles, agency managers, label managers, web and graphic designers, psychologists and musicians. Concerto21 offers an inspiring alternation of classical seminar formats, workshops in small groups and individual coaching, so that all academics are individually challenged and supported.
Team
Andreas Brandis
Andreas Brandis is a German music producer, artist manager and entrepreneur. He is CEO and shareholder of the Munich/Berlin jazz label ACT Music + Vision and founder and CEO of the Berlin-based artist and concert agency The ACT Agency. Born in Heidelberg, he was trained as a child in violin, classical percussion and drums and later studied jazz drums, percussion and music education in Leipzig and Lucerne. He worked for over 15 years as a musician and composer in national and international ensembles and at various German theaters. After completing a master's degree in cultural and media management, Brandis has held leading positions at renowned companies in the music industry since 2008, including FerryHouse, Universal Music Group, Deutsche Grammophon and ECM. He was Managing Director of ACT Music from 2015-2022 and has been CEO and shareholder of the company since 2022. Brandis founded The ACT Agency in 2017, which represents ACT artists as well as other international jazz and classical musicians. The agency books and produces over 500 concerts a year in Europe and the UK. Since 2008, Andreas Brandis has also been active as a guest lecturer and mentor in artist development for universities and other institutions. From 2018 to 2021, he was a board member of the Association for Independent Music Entrepreneurs (VUT).
Andreas Brandis
Academy Director
Sonia Simmenauer
Sonia Simmenauer was born in the USA and grew up in France. After studying languages (English-German) at the Sorbonne in Paris, she moved to Hamburg in 1982, where she founded her concert agency, Impresariat Simmenauer, in 1989. In 2008, she opened Café Leonar, along with the Jewish Salon at Grindel. In the same year, her book "Muss Es Sein" about life in a string quartet, was published by Berenberg. (Meanwhile translated into French and English). In 2009 she moved to Berlin with the agency, in 2022 she founded a Berlin Jewish salon.
Sonia Simmenauer
Founder Impresariat Simmenauer, President BDKV, Manager, Mentor
Uta Gielke
Uta Gielke took over as head of the Alfred Toepfer Foundation's culture program department in 2005 and has been deputy head of the foundation's entire program department since 2020. She has been a member of the Board of the Carl Toepfer Foundation since 2016. She studied Applied Cultural Studies at the University of Lüneburg and is also trained as a speech therapist. She has provided organizational and conceptual support for the Concerto21 Academy since its launch in 2008 and has accompanied some of the academy members on their musical journey for many years. In addition to music, she is passionate about the visual arts. Since 2020, she has therefore also been in charge of further education formats for visual artists and prospective museum directors.
Uta Gielke
Program Director Culture, Alfred Toepfer Stiftung F.V.S.
Martin Tröndle
Martin Tröndle has held the WÜRTH Chair of Cultural Production since 2015, which was established as an endowed chair with the help of the WÜRTH Foundation and the Stifterverband der Deutschen Wissenschaft. The chair's research and teaching focuses on cultural organizations and their visitors and non-visitors, cultural policies and cultural funding, and the impact of specific performance and exhibition formats. Since 2018, Tröndle has directed ECR - Experimental Concert Research (experimental-concert-research.org). The research project investigates the concert experience and is funded by the Volkswagen Foundation. Tröndle conceived and co-directed Concerto21 from 2008 to 2020. From 2021, he will act as spiritus rector in the background. On behalf of the Alfred Töpfer Foundation, he has been able to conduct Concerto21 - Concerts for the Present annually since 2008.
Martin Tröndle
Founder of the Academy
Mentors
Annekatrin Hentschel
Annekatrin Hentschel has dedicated herself to presenting classical music in an emotional, accessible and humorous way. Not only as a presenter of concerts, events and festivals such as the ARD International Music Competition, Opera for All or the Ernst von Siemens Music Prize. For the past 10 years, she has headed the young magazine SWEET SPOT at BR-Klassik - after radio, TV and events, the focus of her young team is now primarily on the development of digital formats. Podcasts and music video productions for the ARD Mediathek and Audiothek are among the current projects with a musical focus on film and game music and contemporary chamber music.
Annekatrin Hentschel
Presenter and editor Bayerischer Rundfunk / BR Klassik
Michael Gottfried
For almost 20 years Michael Gottfried has been taking care of communication, press, text & concept, digital marketing and A&R in the field of jazz & more, with regular excursions into crossover, indie, classical and much of what is commonly understood as "world music". Since 2009 he has been doing this exclusively for the ACT label, one of the world's leading indies of contemporary, cross-genre music with jazz DNA. Michael Gottfried has worked on more than 500 albums for ACT, with artists such as Nils Landgren, Michael Wollny, Esbjörn Svensson, Wolfgang Haffner, Lars Danielsson, Youn Sun Nah, Vijay Iyer, Iiro Rantala, Bugge Wesseltoft, Viktoria Tolstoy, Emile Parisien, Vincent Peirani and many more. At the same time, his heart beats especially for the establishment of artists of a new generation, such as Johanna Summer, Joel Lyssarides, Anna Gréta, Jazzrausch Bigband, Jakob Manz, Vincent Meissner and many more. Michael Gottfried was born in 1980 in Suhl / Thuringia and currently lives with his wife, dog and drums in Munich.
Michael Gottfried
Communication Manager, A&R ACT Music
Marc Wilhelm
Marc Wilhelm works as a creative consultant and visual storyteller with a focus on conception and content strategy. For more than ten years he has focused on the production of videos and photos for artists, bands and brands. As a videographer and photographer he travels worldwide with different artists and develops ideas and concepts for big and small brands from his studio in Freiburg. He puts strategies into action and inspires creative people with new ideas and impulses. At Concerto21. Marc Wilhelm teaches the subject "Digital World: Content & Creation" and imparts not only practical expertise, but also possibilities and tools for idea generation. In close cooperation with the participants, he gives impulses and analyzes existing content.
Marc Wilhelm
Founder Fuchsrot, Creative Consultant
Bettina Bohle
Dr. Bettina Bohle currently heads the project "House of Jazz - Center for Jazz and Improvised Music", which aims to implement a place for production, presentation, mediation, networking and discourse in Berlin. For several years, she ran the jazz blog JAZZAffine. Since 2013, she has been active first on the board and later as managing director at the interest group IG Jazz Berlin. In the course of this, she helped to develop, among other things, the Jazzwoche Berlin, the Jazzpreis Berlin, and a special support program for women in jazz. Since 2020, she has been with the Bundesverband Deutsche Jazzunion, where she initially oversaw the Gender & Diversity department before taking over as head of the Jazz Center project team. She supported the Initiative Musik in setting up the German Jazz Award and the first implementation of the award. Since 2020, she has been one of the three spokespersons for the Bundeskonferenz Jazz.
Bettina Bohle
Head of „House of Jazz – Center for Jazz and Improvised Music“, Spokesperson Bundeskonferenz Jazz
Sophie Colindres Zühlke
Sophie Haydee Colindres Zühlke is a German-Honduran choreographer and dancer from Munich. Her training took her to the Peridance Center in New York City on a scholarship and to the Trinity Laban Conservatoire (MA Choreography) in London on a DAAD and Leverhulme scholarship. She has performed on stages such as the Residenztheater Munich in “Mehr schwarz als lila” and “Ist mein Mikro an?”. She has also developed choreography for ensembles such as Tetra Brass and the 75th anniversary of the Basic Law of the City of Munich as well as commercial performances, most recently for McLaren and Bergson. Her funded projects in the independent scene include the dance theater piece “K A L E I D O S K O P”, which was awarded the Mosaic Prize against Racism. Her latest work “INSIDE KLDSKP” premiered on November 3, 2024. Her next play “GREY” at the Munich Volkstheater in collaboration with Serhat “Saïd” Perhat will premiere on March 20, 2025. Sophie is also involved as a jury member for the 2024-2026 funding period in the children's and youth theater of the Freie Szene München. Sophie is committed to multiculturalism in her work and promotes the coming together of young dancers without stage experience and professional dancers. Her contemporary dance theater pieces combine a wide variety of dance styles from contemporary to hip hop to breaking. The common language is dance and the subject matter connects the personalities of the performers.
Sophie Colindres Zühlke
Choreographer, Dancer
Jonathan Pengl
Jonathan is Managing Director of TONALiSTEN gGmbH and runs the TONALi Stage Academy. His work focuses on supporting young musicians in the development of creative concert formats and sustainable artist profiles. With TONALi, he initiates and supports socially oriented cultural projects in Hamburg and in collaboration with an (inter)national network of concert halls and festivals. He also teaches concert dramaturgy and staging at various universities and academies, including Leuphana University Lüneburg, mdw Vienna and the Balthasar Neumann Academy. Jonathan studied cello at the Berlin University of the Arts and cultural management in Hamburg. He has worked professionally for Ensemble Resonanz and PODIUM Esslingen, among others.
Jonathan Pengl
Maganger TONALiSTEN gGmbH, Head TONALi Stage Academy
Roman Sladek
Roman Sladek studied classical and jazz trombone as well as culture and music management at the HfMT Munich. Since then he has worked in the Munich music scene with his own bands as well as accompanying musicians, teaching and working as a music manager and promoter. In March 2014 he founded the Jazzrausch Bigband with musicians from the HfMT Munich, with whom he has produced and presented nine albums so far (2021), after The Mirror Suite with Christian Elsässer, Matthias Schriefl and Moritz Stahl for example the Christmas program Still! Still! Still! or the album téchne. The large formation led by Sladek has performed at New York's Lincoln Center and at international festivals, among other venues. In 2017, Sladek received the BMW Welt Young Artist Jazz Award with his Jazzrausch Bigband. In his septet Slatec, he works with several soloists on creative trap and techno in real time. Since 2022 he is also Artistic Director of the Bergson Kunstkraftwerk in Munich, which is expected to open in early 2024.
Roman Sladek
Founder Jazzrausch Bigband, Artistic Director Bergson Kulturkraftwerk
Sebastian Rohde & Annika Line Trost
Firma Freimauer is a Berlin based graphic studio specialized in art direction for music & media and its visual resonation, creative concepts & strategies, extraordinaire typography, logo design & branding, fine art illustrations & paintings, urban culture, cosmopolitan attitudes & rock'n'roll.
Sebastian Rohde & Annika Line Trost
Firma Freimauer
Annika Treutler
In 2018, RBB called Annika Treutler the “most interesting German pianist under 30”. Since her debut in 2010 at the Berlin Philharmonie with the Deutsches Sinfonie-Orchester Berlin with Schumann's Piano Concerto, she has regularly performed as a soloist with renowned orchestras such as the Konzerthausorchester Berlin, the Gürzenichorchester Köln, Belgrade Philharmonic Orchestra and the Gulbenkian Orchestra Lisbon in major halls such as the Kölner Philharmonie, the Isarphilharmonie and the Wigmore Hall in London. She also devotes herself intensively to chamber music and can be heard with important artists such as Jörg Widmann, Tabea Zimmermann and Daniel Müller-Schott. In the fall of this year, her CD recordings were awarded the prestigious “Opus Klassik” for the second time. She is also the initiator of the “respondinmusic” project, which uses ostracized music to promote a democratic society, particularly among the younger generation. She also demonstrates her commitment to young people in her role as ambassador for the “Rhapsody in School” project launched by Lars Vogt. She currently teaches at the Hanns Eisler Hochschule für Musik Berlin, most recently as a visiting professor, and as a professor of piano at the Hochschule für Musik Dresden.
Annika Treutler
Pianist
Concerto21 Foundation
Board of Trustees
Sonia Simmenauer
Sonia Simmenauer was born in the USA and grew up in France. After studying languages (English-German) at the Sorbonne in Paris, she moved to Hamburg in 1982, where she founded her concert agency, Impresariat Simmenauer, in 1989. In 2008, she opened Café Leonar, along with the Jewish Salon at Grindel. In the same year, her book "Muss Es Sein" about life in a string quartet, was published by Berenberg. (Meanwhile translated into French and English). In 2009 she moved to Berlin with the agency, in 2022 she founded a Berlin Jewish salon.
Sonia Simmenauer
Founder Impresariat Simmenauer, President BDKV, Manager, Mentor
Julia Hülsmann
Julia Hülsmann is a unique voice in the European jazz scene. She has an exceptional output as a bandleader, pianist and composer. She has lived in Berlin since 1991, where she studied jazz piano at the HdK. She has been active nationally and internationally as a pianist and composer for many years, releasing numerous CDs, always with her trio and various vocal and instrumental guests. The range of her projects includes a solo program to octet and collaboration with big bands (e.g. NDR and HR big bands), of which her trio is the longest standing ensemble - she has been playing with Marc Muellbauer and Heinrich Köbberling for almost 20 years. From 2011-13 she was president of the Union of German Jazz Musicians (Deutsche Jazzunion). In 2014 she was Improvisor in Residence at the Moers Festival, and in 2016 she received the SWR Jazz Prize as well as the WDR Honorary Prize for her political work to improve working conditions for jazz musicians*. In 2019 she was artist in residence at the Elbjazz Festival. In 2020, the Julia Hülsmann Trio was awarded the Trier Jazz Prize. 2021 the pianist and her quartet received the German Jazz Award for the best national instrumental album. In 2022 she received the GEMA Music Authors Award in the category Jazz/Cross Over. 2022 saw the release of the new Julia Hülsmann Quartet album The Next Door, the 8th release on ECM. Julia Hülsmann is professor of piano jazz/pop and ensemble conducting at the Berlin University of the Arts. She is the subject coordinator of the jazz/pop section of the music teacher training programs.
Julia Hülsmann
Jazz pianist
Annekatrin Hentschel
Annekatrin Hentschel has dedicated herself to presenting classical music in an emotional, accessible and humorous way. Not only as a presenter of concerts, events and festivals such as the ARD International Music Competition, Opera Für Alle or the Ernst von Siemens Musikpreis. For the past 10 years, she has headed the young magazine SWEET SPOT at BR-Klassik - after radio, TV and events, the focus of her young team is now primarily on the development of digital formats. Podcasts and music video productions for the ARD Mediathek and Audiothek are among the current projects with a musical focus on film and game music and contemporary chamber music.
Annekatrin Hentschel
Presenter and editor Bayerischer Rundfunk / BR Klassik
Uta Gielke
Uta Gielke took over as head of the Alfred Toepfer Foundation's culture program department in 2005 and has been deputy head of the foundation's entire program department since 2020. She has been a member of the Board of the Carl Toepfer Foundation since 2016. She studied Applied Cultural Studies at the University of Lüneburg and is also trained as a speech therapist. She has provided organizational and conceptual support for the Concerto21 Academy since its launch in 2008 and has accompanied some of the academy members on their musical journey for many years. In addition to music, she is passionate about the visual arts. Since 2020, she has therefore also been in charge of further education formats for visual artists and prospective museum directors.
Uta Gielke
Program director of culture, Alfred Toepfer Toepfer Foundation F.V.S.
Foundation Board
Andreas Brandis
Andreas Brandis is a German music producer, artist manager and entrepreneur. He is CEO and shareholder of the Munich/Berlin jazz label ACT Music + Vision and founder and CEO of the Berlin-based artist and concert agency The ACT Agency. Born in Heidelberg, he was trained as a child in violin, classical percussion and drums and later studied jazz drums, percussion and music education in Leipzig and Lucerne. He worked for over 15 years as a musician and composer in national and international ensembles and at various German theaters. After completing a master's degree in cultural and media management, Brandis has held leading positions at renowned companies in the music industry since 2008, including FerryHouse, Universal Music Group, Deutsche Grammophon and ECM. He was Managing Director of ACT Music from 2015-2022 and has been CEO and shareholder of the company since 2022. Brandis founded The ACT Agency in 2017, which represents ACT artists as well as other international jazz and classical musicians. The agency books and produces over 500 concerts a year in Europe and the UK. Since 2008, Andreas Brandis has also been active as a guest lecturer and mentor in artist development for universities and other institutions. From 2018 to 2021, he was a board member of the Association for Independent Music Entrepreneurs (VUT).
Andreas Brandis
Managing Director ACT Music & The ACT Agency
Dr. Krischan von Moeller
Krischan von Moeller is a founding partner of Paragon. Previously, he was responsible for the restructuring of a portfolio of medium-sized companies at BZV Partners. From 1999 to 2002, he was Head of Corporate Development at the Georg von Holtzbrinck Publishing Group, where he was responsible for strategic and operational projects of the group as well as M&A transactions. Prior to that, Krischan spent six years with the Boston Consulting Group in Munich, London and Australasia. He holds a PhD in Industrial Engineering from the Technical University of Darmstadt and Harvard University. In his free time, Krischan enjoys spending time with his family and traveling.
Dr. Krischan von Moeller
Founding Partner Paragon Partners
Ansgar Wimmer
Ansgar Wimmer has been a member of the Board of the Alfred Toepfer Foundation F.V.S. since October 2004, and has been its Chairman since July 1, 2005. From 2000 to 2004, he was a member of the City Council of Gütersloh (without party affiliation), responsible for culture, education, youth, social affairs and sports in the city of Gütersloh. Previous Wimmer gained work experience as a project manager at the nonprofit Bertelsmann Stiftung, at the United Nations (UNCTAD/ Geneva) and at the consulting firm consulting firm McKinsey & Co. He is a fully qualified lawyer and, as a John J. McCloy Scholar, he holds a Master's degree in Public Administration from the John F. Kennedy School of Government (Harvard University/USA). Ansgar Wimmer is Honorary Vice Chairman of the Association of German Foundations. He is a member of the Board of Trustees of the Kunststiftung NRW, the E.W. Kuhlmann Foundation, the non-profit initiative Common Purpose Deutschland GmbH, on the Board of Trustees of the Hamburger Öffentliche Bücherhallen and the Ernst H. Klett Stiftung Merkur, Stuttgart, and on the board of the Lieselotte Klein Foundation, Hamburg/Berlin, and member of the board of trustees of the Stiftung Historische Museen Hamburg.
Ansgar Wimmer
Chairman of the Board of the Alfred Toepfer Foundation F.V.S.
Former Participants
Concerto21. was launched in 2008 by the Toepfer Foundation and has since developed into a highly effective and sustainable continuing education format. Following the Summer Academy, many of the participants have completely revised their concerts and their media presence, dissolved existing ensembles and formed new ones, turned to their art in a new way - or they have taken completely unforeseen paths. Risks and side effects are expressly welcome at Concerto21.
- Academy 2024
- Academy 2023
- Academy 2022
- Academy 2019
- Academy 2018
- Academy 2017
- Academy 2016
- Academy 2014
- Academy 2013
- Academy 2012
- Academy 2011
- Academy 2010
- Academy 2008
