Michael Hell & Thomas Höft

What Liszt would call ‘programme music’ is rooted in the Baroque era, when instrumental music inspired by extra-musical sources was already being written. The biblical stories of David, Goliath, Saul and Jacob – translated into harpsichord music and poetically articulated by Johann Kuhnau – form the scenario within which natural-born storytellers Michael Hell and Thomas Höft get to work.

Harpsichordist and recorder virtuoso Michael Hell is professor of harpsichord and basso continuo at the University of Music and Performing Arts Graz. His extensive concert activities as a soloist, chamber musician and orchestra leader have taken him through all of Europe, America, China and Japan. After ten years as one of two musical leaders of Neue Hofkapelle Graz, he decided to start a new group: ĀRT HOUSE 17, which combines the different genres of art even more deeply.

Thomas Höft studied art history, literature, musicology and psycholinguistics in Hamburg. He works as a writer, director and dramaturge in very different fields of art. He is responsible for major historical thematic exhibitions in German and Austrian museums and writes non-fiction books. He has become known for his numerous plays and opera librettos for the Deutsche Oper Berlin, the Komische Oper Berlin and the Bregenz Festival. Since 1994 Thomas Höft works as a dramaturge of the Festival styriarte Graz, which was founded for Nikolaus Harnoncourt. From 2012 to 2018 he was director of the Cologne Center for Early Music (ZAMUS) and Artistic Director of the Cologne Festival of Early Music. In 2018 and 2019 he was responsible for the dramaturgy of the Musikfestspiele Potsdam Sanssouci, and he was co-curator of the Utrecht Early Music Festival in 2019.