Next year the world will celebrate the 250th birthday of one of its most renowned composers, Ludwig van Beethoven. The jubilee will be centered in Bonn, Germany, where Beethoven was born and raised, and Vienna, Austria, where he moved at age 22 to study and remained until his death.
BTHNV2020 will be a yearlong commemoration featuring an array of special events, concerts, theatrical performances, workshops, and exhibits across both cities and other European destinations. Tour packages that include significant sites related to the composer in Bonn and Vienna also will be offered.
The goal of the jubilee, which is being spearheaded by the Beethoven Anniversary Society, is to strengthen and promote projects related to the music of Beethoven. He occasionally signed his letters and scores with the abbreviation BTHVN, and the organization is basing the main themes of the celebration on those letters: B (Bonn-born cosmopolitan), T (tonkünstler = composer), H (humanist), V (visionary) and N (nature lover). Different elements of the programming will represent these aspects of the musical genius’ life and work.
Some of the featured events include Bonn’s Beethovenfest in September, the Beethoven 250 Choral Festival from June 9 to 13 in Vienna, the Beethoven 250 Orchestral Festival on June 28 in Vienna, and the global premiere of renowned Chinese composer Tan Dun’s Beethoven-inspired work “The Nine Project” on Aug. 8 in Bonn.
To learn more, go to bthvn2020.de/en.
Top photo: Beethoven statue in Bonn’s Münsterplatz
Photo by Michael Sondermann
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