Photo: Thorsten Wingenfelder
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It was the early 80s and the two founders of Salut Salon,
then eleven years-old, shared the baton in a local Hamburg
schools orchestra. From the very first time that the two
girls burst into fits of laughter, they knew: Aristotle
was right when he said that there is such a thing as "one
soul in two bodies" – more than sharing the
same sense of humour – a deep friendship which never
dies. In the case of Angelika Bachmann
and Iris Siegfried, their friendship
is still going strong after 30 years. Out of this friendship
Salut Salon was born.
It was at a regular meeting of musicians, actors and
artists who performed on the last Friday of every month
in a kind of salon held in an apartment in the Hamburg
neighborhood of Eppendorf that Angelika Bachmann and Iris
Siegfried played regularly in a piano quartet. At some
point a gallery owner asked the four musicians whether
they would like to perform in the gallery - a public performance.
So the quartet needed a name.
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The four quickly came up with Salut Salon, which, roughly
translated, means something like "Hi, Living Room";
"Salut", because one item of the quartet's very first
repertoire was Edward Elgar's Salut d'amour and "Salon"
because it was there that it all began. Salut Salon had
their break-through in 2002 with sell-out concerts in their
home city of Hamburg, Germany.
The headline in the German national newspaper Welt am Sonntag
ran: "A Quartet is born." Salut Salon gives
more than 120 concerts a year, including guest performances
in cities all over Europe, in the USA, in China and South America.
Salut Salon are at home all over the world. The quartet
knows more than practically any other chamber musical ensemble
how to win their audiences the world over, not just with virtuosic
mastery of their instrument, but also with their sense of fun,
instrumental acrobatics, charm and humor.
The current ensemble includes Sonja Lena Schmid
(cello), Anne-Monika von Twardowski (piano),
and Oskar.
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Angelika Bachmann
In view of her outstanding musical talent, Angelika was
exempted by the City of Hamburg from the regular school
curriculum and was thus able to devote herself entirely
from early childhood on to playing the violin. At the tender
age of seven she performed as a soloist with orchestras
such as the Hamburger Symphoniker, gathered experience of
TV performances and took first place several times in the
prestigious German competition for young musicians. In addition
to her music studies, Angelika also took a degree in German
and Philosophy. In 2007 she published several of her arrangements
under the title Flexible Strings. Five Pieces for variable
string ensemble.
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Iris Siegfried
Iris earned her musical laurels at a very early age by winning
the competition "Jugend musiziert". She discovered
her vocal talent later in performances with various different
choirs and a-cappella groups. Alongside her musical career
she got a law degree in 2000. Since then she has worked
as a lawyer for a Hamburg law practice specializing in competition
and copyright law. For Iris, however, creating beautiful
music will always be what she loves most in the world. In
2002 she founded Salut Salon in conjunction with
Angelika.
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Sonja Lena Schmid
Sonja Lena studied cello and chamber music in Hamburg, Amsterdam,
Den Haag and Lübeck and has won many awards and grants.
Besides playing with Salut Salon, Sonja Lena is involved
in numerous chamber music and theatre music projects and
is guest performer at international festivals. She is a
great fan of new waves in music and is a member of Decoder,
an ensemble with unconventional performance style and programm
concepts. Sonja Lena is mainly preoccupied with the connection
between music and theatre: She has performed in productions
at Thalia Theater (Hamburg), Deutsches Schauspielhaus and
the Biennale in Munich. |
Anne-Monika von Twardowski
Anne-Monika was born in Durban, South Africa, and had her
first piano lesson in Germany at the tender age of six.
From 2002 to 2011, she took a degree in piano teaching and
in musical arts (piano performance) at the Musikhochschule
Lübeck.
Anne-Monika went to Barcelona as an Erasmus exchange student
in 2005/2006 where she was a student of Prof. Pierre Reach
and Prof. Alan Branch at Escola Superior de Música
Catalunya. In 2014 Anne-Monika completed her Masters
degree in music. Also in 2014, Anne-Monika set up the project
"Rau****
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Oskar
Oskar was born in Hamburg. His dad is a puppet maker, his
mother a wandering muse who disappeared shortly after Oskar
was born. Oskar grew up in the artistic atmosphere of his
father's puppet making workshop and began to play the xylophone
at a very early age. Later his musical ambitions developed
and he moved on to other musical instruments. Now he is
not only a master of the xylophone but also a virtuoso pianist,
cellist and violinist. With regard to academic stage performance,
Oskar cut his teeth at the famous Swiss circus school of
Clown Dimitri, where he also learned the art of the puppet
show. It was this accomplishment that finally won him the
role as honorary man with Salut Salon and which enables
him, what is more, to perform with effortless flair with
the four lady musicians. When Oskar is not touring the world
with Salut Salon, he is busy writing his memoirs,
which are to be published in time for the Frankfurt Book
Fair in autumn 2015.
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