Experimental Multimedia Youth Orchestra
The Berlin “Experimental Multimedia Youth Orchestra” specializes in music production (composition, orchestration, recording) for independent film productions as well as live performances of multimedia projects in the form of compositions for exhibitions of the visual arts. In its current form the orchestra consists mainly of string players and singers (choir) and will be expanded to include additional groups of instruments over the course of the next year.
The first two big movie production will be produced in collaboration with Art Doydu Film Company (producer Marianna Siegen) named “Legends of Olonkho Land” and “Karina”.
Lidia Kalendareva & Alin Cristian Oprea, Adrian Heger, Polina Liefers, Johannes David Wolff, Jahn Koehn founded the Experimental Multimedia Youth Orchestra in early 2020.
Lidia Kalendareva was born in St. Petersburg and is a film, theatre, ballet composer and graduated concert pianist and music theorist. She wrote her first composition at the age of 6 for the music theater “Around the Piano” with which she has given concerts at home and abroad since she was 7. During her studies she won the important German young talent award of the “FRANZ-GROTHE & GEMA STIFTUNG” in Munich in 2009 as the best film composer, whereupon she performed her music in front of and behind the camera for ZDF and ARTE TV programs and at many concert stages and film festivals in Europe, China & USA.
In 2013 she won the international RACHMANINOV COMPOSITION COMPETITION for her piano work “Sonata Nostalgie”. A year later she and the composer Alin Cristian Oprea received the award for “THE BEST INTERNATIONAL FILM MUSIC” 2014 during the 10th Zurich Film Festival, in which the composer couple competed against 221 film composers from 40 countries with a high-ranking jury, including participation by the Hollywood film composer Hans Zimmer.
From 2015 to 2019 Lidia Kalendareva accompanied the ARTE TV show “STARS VON MORGEN” with Rolando Villazón as a pianist. A year later followed an engagement as a pianist at the THEATER DES WESTENS Berlin for Disney’s musical “The Hunchback of Notre Dame” and “Ghost”. She works with several international ballet companies, including the STAATSBALLETT BERLIN as a ballet composer & pianist. She has appeared in front of the camera as an actress and musician for several film productions. AMA Verlag Berlin & Calliope Records Paris have already published piano and orchestral compositions by the composer. Lidia Kalendareva has been the musical director of “OFFstage Germany” since 2017.
Art Director / Composer
CEO / Composer
Alin Cristian Oprea is an internationally award-winning film composer, pianist and sound engineer. After graduating from high school in the USA, he completed his studies with honors as a qualified sound engineer and successfully completed a master’s degree in film music at the “University of Film and Television Konrad Wolf” in Babelsberg.
He composed & arranged music for more than 30 different Film productions worldwide. For the Soundtrack to the Spanish Movie “Stones From The Desert” he was awarded the “BEST ORCHESTRAL SOUNDTRACK ” at the New Jersey Film Festival in USA.
In 2016, the film “Und Ich So: Äh” (Director: Steffen Heidenreich, Music: Alin Cristian Oprea) won the GOLDEN LOLA at the GERMAN SHORT FILM AWARD in Munich, with express praise for the film music in the jury’s statement.
Oprea’s compositions have been recorded by several renowned orchestras, including the German Film Orchestra Babelsberg under the direction of Bernd Wefelmeyer, the Tonhalle Orchestra Zurich with the legendary conductor Frank Strobel and the Georgia Sinfonietta Orchestra. He directed and produced several music ballet videos and worked together with choreographer Anna Svitlychenko and composer Lida Kalendareva on the realization of the multimedia ballet show “Piano Paintings”. In 2015 Alin Cristian Opera’s first orchestral album was released by ROBA Verlag in Hamburg. In 2018 Warner-Chappell Verlag released his second album “Explosive Violin” worldwide, in which classical and electronic elements are merged compositionally. In 2019, together with Lidia Kalendareva, he took over the musical direction and sound programming of the “Altar Boyz” musical show.
Musical Director (Orchestra)
Adrian Heger was born in Berlin and studied conducting at the Hanns Eisler Music Academy. A longstanding teacher-student relationship connected him with the composer Karlheinz Stockhausen. Under the overall direction of Karlheinz Stockhausen, he conducted the world premiere of Stockhausen’s RECHTER AUGENBRAUENTANZ at the age of 22. At the Holland Festival Amsterdam in 2019 he conducted MICHAEL’S JOURNEY AROUND THE EARTH, THURSDAY GREETING, SATURDAY GREETING and LUCIFERS TANZ from Stockhausen’s opera cycle LIGHT – The Seven Days of the Week (director: Pierre Audi). In 2021 he will perform LUCIFERS TANZ in the Philharmonic Orchestra of Essen with students from all the music academies in North Rhine-Westphalia. Until 2020 he was engaged as a musical assistant at the State Opera Unter den Linden, where he conducted new productions of Karl Amadeus Hartmann’s “Simplicius Simplicissimus” and Mike Svoboda’s “Der unbelievable Spotz”. In the concert field he led orchestras such as the Berlin Symphony Orchestra, the Konzerthausorchester Berlin and the Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester Berlin. In 2014 he wrote a reduced orchestration of the third movement of Gustav Mahler’s 1st Symphony for the Staatskapelle Berlin. He worked with Marc Albrecht, Daniel Barenboim, Pierre Boulez, Ivan Fischer, Sir Simon Rattle and Peter Ruzicka, among others.
Johannes David Wolff studied music theory at the University of the Arts Berlin and choral conducting at the University of Birmingham, England. Christian Grube and Simon Halsey are among his most important mentors, with whom he still works regularly to this day. He received additional conducting lessons from Julian Wilkins and Georg Christoph Sandmann, among others.
During his studies in Birmingham, Johannes David Wolff conducted Benjamin Britten’s Beggar’s Opera and worked with the Birmingham University Singers.
Through numerous collaborations and assistance with choirs such as the CBSO and the LSO Chorus, he professionalized both in the choral symphonic and in the a-cappella area.
Johannes David Wolff has been in charge of the vocal system since it was founded in 2012. The scenic implementation of Rossini’s “Petite Messe Solennelle” represents the highlight of this collaboration so far. He also conducts several children’s and youth choirs from the Berlin Philharmonic choir program “Vokalhelden”.
He regularly works with Simon Halsey as an assistant during large-scale choir projects in the Berlin Philharmonie .
Musical Director (Choir)
Visual Brand Identity
Polina Liefers was born in Moscow and comes from a German-Russian theater family. In 2013 she finished her studies in scenography at the Moscow Art Theater School. She then designed sets for spoken theater productions in Moscow as well as for television. She was involved in the theater performance “Normansk”, which was shown as a convertible theater in the Meyerhold Center in Moscow and was nominated for the Russian theater award “Golden Mask 2015”.
She has lived in Germany since 2015 and works as a stage and costume designer in the field of musical theater and acting.
In the 2020-21 season she is responsible for the set design for “Adriana Lecouvreur” at the Teatro Maggio Musicale Fiorentino and for the costume design for “Don Karlos” at the Schauspiel Köln, both staged by Jürgen Flimm.
In 2017 she designed the set and costumes for the chamber opera “Der unglaubliche Spotz” (director: Marcin Lakomicki), which premiered in the New Workshop of the State Opera Unter den Linden. In 2018 she was responsible for the set design for “La Clemenza di Tito” at the Braunschweig State Theater and designed the set for “The Soldier’s Story” in the Apollo Hall of the State Opera Unter den Linden, both staged by Jürgen Flimm. In 2019 she designed the set for Max Urlacher’s world premiere of “Tailwind” at the Nibelungen Festival in Worms.
She worked as a stage design assistant at the Berliner Ensemble, the Teatro alla Scala and the Berlin State Opera.
Jan E. Köhn, (* 1996) studies business informatics at the University of Potsdam and is the founder and managing director of various associations and institutions. Among other things, he is a founding member of the youth orchestra Euphoria and is responsible for the management of the association and all related economic activities.
Jan Köhn founded and advises the youth orchestra Euphoria Berlin e. V. other associations, including JES e.V. and WAN e.V., whose chairman he is to this day. He is also the founder and managing director of the Holding Koehn Consolidated UG (limited liability) and the education and NPO consulting service provider Educaltex UG (limited liability).
Project Management
Since the foundation of the Experimental Multimedia Youth Orchestra in early 2020, several projects have been recorded and performed, including:
Choir Recordings for “Metube 3 “
Composition (Movie Trailer): Alin Cristian Oprea & Lidia Kalendareva
Director: Daniel Moshel
String Effect Recordings for Movie Trailer “Legends Of Olonkho Land Teaser Trailer 2020 “
Composition (Movie Trailer): Lidia Kalendareva
Orchestrator & Mixing & Music Supervisor Alin Cristian Oprea
Producer: Marianna Siegen
String & Choir Recordings are planed for the whole movie in 2021
String Recordings for Song “Mein letztes Wort “
Composition (Movie Trailer): Lidia Kalendareva
Orchestrator & Mixing Alin Cristian Oprea
Singer: Michael Heller
Music Video has been released.