The musical highlight of 2024: “Boxhead” play in the Munich Residenz – Dachau

There may have been one or two extraordinary concerts in the Hercules Hall of the Munich Residence. But the fact that the benches creak in time because the listeners nod so violently to the music, that solos are acknowledged with enthusiastic whistles and finally even a cellist coram publico pulls his hair out of his braid and bangs his head so that his mane just flies – that should be true must have been a novelty in the more than 70-year history of this concert hall. “It was total euphoria,” says Andreas Pernpeintner from the Dachau rock band Boxhead the day after about “probably one of the biggest projects ever involving a Dachau band.”

Boxhead has had one and a half years with the Munich native Abaco Orchestra under conductor Ina Stoertzenbach worked feverishly towards this evening in October. The program includes a milestone in music history, the “Concerto for Group and Orchestra” by Jon Lord from 1969. The composition by the man who died in 2012 deep purpleOrganists was the first attempt to combine rock and classical. The work is not often played in three movements, the effort is enormous, and the different volumes of an orchestra and a rock band bring with them special technical challenges. You approach Boxhead with a completely new approach. Instead of technically amplifying the sound of the orchestra, it is the band that adapts and scales back in favor of the classical ensemble.

The British rock band “Deep Purple” played the concert piece at their performance in Munich in 1999. There were also two ardent fans from Dachau in the audience at the time: keyboardist Andreas Pernpeintner and drummer Jan van Meerendonk. The two members were the newly founded student band at the Josef-Effner-Gymnasium in Dachau, today they are known as Boxhead. The band’s 25th anniversary seemed to be the right time to put a long-held lifelong dream into practice: to perform Jon Lord’s magnum opus.

The time has come in October. In the almost sold-out Herkulessaal, the Abaco Orchestra and Boxhead replace the almost 1,400 listeners, including a few hundred from Dachau, in a collective frenzy. The greatest praise comes from conductor Paul Mann and Jon Lord’s closest confidant in all aspects of the “Concertos”. “Jon would have loved it,” he says afterwards about this performance. “He would have loved every minute of it.” Of course he is referring to none other than Jon Lord, the creator of this work.