Biography of Thomas Honickel July 2011
Since the summer 2008 the Beethoven Orchester Bonn has had its own full-time municipal expert for concert education. The musician (conductor / pianist) and pedagogue, Thomas Honickel, was appointed the director of the Beethoven Orchestra's educational project “Bobbys Klassik”.
The 52 year-old musician has an extensive repertoire across all genres and a great deal of experience in the field of concert pedagogics gained during ten years which he spent at “Kid's Klassik” in his home town Wuppertal. He then became concert pedagogue at the Duisburg Philharmonic Orchestra. Here, his work with the project “Klasse! Klassik!” was met with great support from politics, schools and sponsors and has reached a broad public. During the five years from 2003 – 2008 altogether more than 50.000 visitors attended over 250 concerts aimed at children, youths and families.
Thomas Honickel's work gained national importance through his innovation in the field of children's music theatre, in which he has brought forward a great number of small and larger productions. For his work he was honoured with the Duisburg prize for music pedagogics. Twice, he was awarded the production award of the Köhler-Osbahr-Stiftung for the best music production. Thomas Honickel also works as a guest at several institutions as a concert pedagogue, artist and advisor.
For his work with children and adolescents involving classical music, Thomas Honickel likes to use the term “edu-tainment” in order to emphasise that education and entertainment do not exclude each other. A joyful attitude towards classical music facilitates the accessibility to various aspects of this art form.
Thus, among the concepts developed by Thomas Honickel there are biographies of composers as well as sacral concerts, children's and youth's operas, interactive concerts in the style of a quiz and much more.
Another imperative aim of this concept is to spark interest in classical music across all generations and to keep this alive. Sustainability and a pioneering spirit significantly characterise the ventures of the Bonn educational program under the artistic management of Thomas Honickel. By now, individual vocal ensembles have successfully been started; another medium to raise the region's awareness.
With great success Thomas Honickel started with the Beethoven Orchester Bonn. Now, after three seasons, he has produced sold-out children's concerts in the Bonn Beethovenhalle and family concerts in the opera. The number of subscribers reached a new high with almost 2300 subscriptions. This makes the Bonn educational program one of the nation's leading programs of its kind. Its outstanding status was underlined in 2009 by the first ever ECHO award for the best program of music mediation. The first CD with Dvorak's Ninth Symphony entitled “Komm! Wir fahren nach Amerika....” was met with great enthusiasm. This CD has got the ECHO Klassik 2011 for the best education-CD and Honickel will achieve the prize in Berlin on 2nd October 2011. This production is also nominated for the LEOPOLD-Prize “Best music for children”.
In 2011, a commission for the composition of the children's opera “Flori und sein Kokofant” was awarded to the Berlin composer Klaus Wüsthoff. Its first performance by “Bobbys Klassik” is scheduled for 2012.
