The series "Musik am Mittwoch" in the Propsteikirche Herz Jesu will continue with a concert for guitar and organ. On Wednesday, April 23, 2025, Silvia Elvers and Christian Gruber will perform works by Antonio Vivaldi, Joaquin Rodrigo, Enjott Schneider, Franz-David Baumann, and Daniel Stickan.
Admission is free, donations requested at the exit.
The project „Orgel trifft Gitarre“ originated through a twist of fate during the first Corona lockdown in May 2020. Organist Silvia Elvers asked guitarist Christian Gruber to musically help design an online church service broadcast together. To both of their surprise, this encounter became a true discovery. Guitar tones, shimmering ethereally over the supporting, multicolored sound of the organ, sparked the desire for a collaborative effort. And thus, the two musicians embarked on a journey of discovery…
Program
The program unites great music from the golden Spanish age to modern times, bringing together friends of string sounds and lovers of the organ. In this rarely played and unusual combination, excerpts from the „Concierto para un Gentilhombre“ by Joaquin Rodrigo, a trio sonata by Antonio Vivaldi, and a Tiento by Pablo Bruna will be performed.
Two contemporary original compositions for organ and guitar are also included in the program: „The Stones of Newgrange“ by Enjott Schneider and the composition „Im Schwarm“ by Daniel Stickan – a piece written specifically for Silvia Elvers and Christian Gruber.
The organist and choir director Silvia Elvers studied church music in Freiburg and Lübeck with Professor Clemens Schnorr and Jürgen Essl as well as choral conducting in Frankfurt am Main with Prof. Wolfgang Schäfer. In various master classes with Michael Radulescu, Andrea Marcon, and Lorenzo Ghielmi, she intensively engaged with early music and historical performance practice.
She took on her first full-time position as a maternity leave replacement for the district choirmaster in Sigmaringen, followed by a position as a cantress focusing on children’s and youth choirs in Waldshut-Tiengen. Alongside her work in the church community, she has been active diocesan-wide and across the state as a lecturer in children’s choir conducting.
In 2007, she became self-employed as a choir director and music educator. In addition to her teaching role at the University of Education in Weingarten, she founded the children's and youth choir DoReMi of the Evang.-luth. Pauluskirche Kaufering, where over 140 children now sing and perform theater with joy, dedication, and skill.
She works on demanding literature with her Landsberg chamber choir. Also as an organist, she particularly enjoys playing together with other musicians, having participated weekly during the Corona period with different musical partners in the online church services of Pauluskirche. Thus, a fruitful collaboration with guitarist Christian Gruber also emerged.
Christian Gruber, an idealistic ambassador of classical guitar for over 35 years, formed the guitar duo Gruber & Maklar with Peter Maklar in 1985. Numerous concert tours have taken the duo to almost all countries in Europe as well as to Mexico, Chile, Martinique, Canada, the USA, Russia, Japan, and South Korea, performing at prestigious venues such as the Manhattan School of Music in New York, the Tchaikovsky Concert Hall in Moscow, the Gendai Guitar Hall in Tokyo, and the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam.
Renowned composers such as Enjott Schneider, Dusan Bogdanovic, Paolo Devecchi, and Atanas Ourkouzounov have composed works for the duo; eight CD recordings featuring Spanish, South American, and Japanese works, as well as literature from the Renaissance to modern times, document his artistic diversity, just like the numerous editions of his own arrangements from the Canadian publisher Dobermann-Yppan/Canada.
In addition to the constant of the guitar duo, Christian Gruber utilizes the diverse possibilities of playing with other musicians as both inspiration and challenge. This is also reflected in extraordinary projects with accordionist Maria Reiter, his daughter Katharina Gruber, or organist Silvia Elvers.
Hallo, ich bin Maya.
