Sauli Zinovjev 
A savage beat
Concerto for percussion and orchestra (world premiere, commissioned by the Beethoven Orchester Bonn)

In conversation: Bettina Böttinger.

• Vivi Vassileva, Percussion
• Beethoven Orchester Bonn
• Dirk Kaftan, conductor

When Martin Grubinger announced his retirement from the concert stage two years ago, people wondered who could step into his shoes. A whole flood of outstanding percussionists applied to succeed him. By BaseCamp 2023 at the latest, we had taken Vivi Vassileva, a young percussionist from Upper Franconia with Bulgarian roots, to our hearts. Anyone who has seen and heard her sweep through a whole park of percussion instruments and make metal, skins and wood sound will never forget it. The young percussionist and ancient instruments, archaic rhythms and contemporary music: for the Finnish composer Sauli Zinovjev, the ritual component of percussion is of great importance, even while he is writing his new percussion concerto, which Vivi Vassileva and we have commissioned. The rite and the rites, constancy and change: these are the topics of our Spiegel discussion, to which Dirk Kaftan and Bettina Böttinger jointly invite you.