dogma chamber orchestra

We love music.
 

Because it is enigmatic and inscrutable.

Because it expresses everything from extreme happiness to deep despair.

Because it moves us and sweeps us along.
 

When you play or listen to music, everything else recedes into the background. Music affects us directly. We love the richly intensive journey of discovery during rehearsals and recordings, but nothing can replace the immediacy of a concert. We only have one chance to awake emotions in an audience and set their thoughts free; and we want to use this chance. We aspire to play more than just the notes, beyond a smoothly polished aesthetic. We want to differentiate art from  artificiality by interpreting and presenting classical music within the context of our time. Technical accomplishment is just a means to an end. 
 

We are untamed, bold and honest.
 

It began in 2004, when our concertmaster and artistic director Mikhail Gurewitsch, gathered around him youthful but already professionally experienced musicians. A group of people came together from different backgrounds, living and sharing the same artistic opinions.

We play standing and without a conductor. That allows us to homogeneously fuse solo impulses with ensemble spirit. Musicians have to listen closely to one another and to be both proactive and reactive. This leads to an unswerving, pulsating dynamism and energy. It is important to us that we are multifaceted and variable. That is why we neither want to nor can be restricted to a particular musical epoch or style. Our repertoire includes work from the Baroque to the present day, from world renowned to newly discovered composers, also Jazz and our own compositions.
 

Nomen est Omen. Our name originates from the DOGMA 95 Manifesto, published by the group around the film director Lars von Trier. It argues against the cinema’s estrangement from reality; against its dramatic predictability and against the obsessive use of technology and effect.

Echoing these sentiments we want to reduce the distance between stage and auditorium: Mikhail Gurewitsch introduces the performances and involves concertgoers in a dialogue – for which we always find time, because the audience and we artists have always belonged together; we are two inseparably united sides of the same page. In spite of all differences, we certainly have one thing in common:
 

We love music.