Welcome from the patron
Dr. Markus Krebber
President and CEO of RWE AG
Patron of the Ruhr Piano Festival 2023
Dear music lovers,
dear friends of the Ruhr Piano Festival,
It is a great joy for me to stand at the Ruhr Piano Festival’s side in my role as Patron for its 2023 edition. This year, we are once more looking forward with great expectations to a season in the course of which we will be able to discover many well-known pianists as well as promising young new talents. These artists will thrill audiences all across the Rhine and Ruhr regions in a multitude of different venues. Franz Xaver Ohnesorg, the Festival’s director for many years, has once again managed to concoct an exceptional programme for us in collaboration with his highly motivated team. We look forward to a multitude of musical treats!
2023 marks the last year in which Professor Ohnesorg will serve as Director of the Ruhr Piano Festival. I wish to pay him my highest respects and express my heartfelt thanks. With tireless commitment and with a generous helping of heart and soul, Prof. Ohnesorg has helped this concert series grow to become the globally admired event it is today. The Ruhr Piano Festival is regarded as one of the region’s flagships, with echoes resounding far beyond its borders. We at RWE are also profoundly connected with the Ruhr Area. RWE was founded here 125 years ago; we have grown to become a large company active on an international level. But our conglomerate’s heartland has always been the Rhine and Ruhr region, and that shall remain so. Here is where we have our roots and where we simply feel at home. One of our heartfelt concerns is offering support for living local culture.
That is why RWE is glad to support the Ruhr Piano Festival. This year, its organizers have made an uncommon decision. Curated concert series normally focus on the anniversaries of the birth and death of famous composers. But the Ruhr Piano Festival has chosen to shine its spotlight on a historical event: the occupation of the Ruhr Region by French and Belgian troops in 1923, exactly one hundred years ago. The year 1923 shall be one of the Festival’s focal themes in 2023.
This focal theme allows us to take a step back and observe the positive evolution of German-French friendship in these last decades. Once bitter enemies, the two peoples have become close partners who collaborate in maintaining our European homeland on a correct political, economic, and cultural course. In view of the current difficult geopolitical situation, this can be cause for hope that mutual understanding and cooperation shall eventually gain the upper hand in the rest of the world.
Music’s power of uniting peoples can also be noted in the fact that this year’s 2023 edition of the Festival gathers artists from over 20 different countries. Along with them, dear music lovers, we shall be celebrating 70 evenings of musical festivities. I invite you to join us!
I look forward to many shared concert experiences with you in the course of this 2023 edition of the Ruhr Piano Festival.
Yours,
Dr. Markus Krebber
President and CEO of RWE AG
Patron of the Ruhr Piano Festival 2023