Move to Bayer’s Cultural Affairs Department

Dr. Volker Mattern to succeed Nikolas Kerkenrath

Bayer Group continues its commitment to culture

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Dr. Volker Mattern<br><br>

Leverkusen, May 30, 2008 Dr. Volker Mattern (51), currently artistic director of the Musikalische Komödie at the Leipzig Opera, will become head of Bayer’s Cultural Affairs Department on September 1, 2008, assuming responsibility for the company’s cultural activities. Mattern will follow Nikolas Kerkenrath (68), who is retiring after 22 successful years in the same position. With the appointment of Mattern, Bayer is continuing its tradition of commitment to culture.

Volker Mattern was born in Saarbrücken in 1956. The theatre maker and orchestra manager studied musicology, philosophy, sociology and history of art at Saarbrücken and Heidelberg universities, and trumpet at the University of Music in Saarbrücken. While still a student he served as assistant stage director at the National Theatre and the University of Music in Mannheim. He wrote his PhD on the subject of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s early opera buffa under the supervision of Ludwig Finscher.

Volker Mattern’s career began in 1985 when he took a position as dramatic advisor for theatre and musical theatre at the Landestheater in Detmold. This was followed by an appointment as opera director at the State Theatre in Oldenburg. Between 1988 and 1996, Volker Mattern was managing director of the Philharmonie Südwestfalen / Landesorchester NRW. During the four-and-a-half years Mattern then spent at Concerto Köln, this orchestra rose to become one of the world’s most renowned ensembles performing on period instruments.

As artistic director of the “Toujours Mozart” festival that takes place concurrently in Salzburg, Austria, and Prague, Czech Republic, the future head of Bayer’s Cultural Affairs Department drew attention to the Munich-based “Internationale Stiftung zur Foerderung von Kultur und Zivilisation” with the festival theme “Sketch-Fragment-Arrangement”. In 2000, Mattern returned to North Rhine-Westphalia to spend five seasons as managing director of the Philharmonisches Orchester der Städte Remscheid und Solingen, before assuming the position of artistic director of the Musikalische Komödie at the Leipzig Opera in 2005.

Mattern is also a noted publicist and consultant. He teaches cultural management at the Frankfurt University of Music and the Performing Arts and opera dramaturgy at Bayreuth University.

Volker Mattern is married and father of two daughters. He will be the sixth head of Bayer’s Cultural Affairs Department, which was founded in 1907.

Nikolas Kerkenrath was born in Schwerin in 1940. Critical impulses for his career came from placements at various theatres in the mid-1960s, which included working with Rolf Liebermann at the Hamburg State Opera and Arno Wüstenhöfer at the Wuppertaler Bühnen. It was on Liebermann’s recommendation that he began his career at the Lucerne Theatre in Switzerland. Between 1968 and 1981 he staged productions at theatres in Baden, Aarau, Bern, Lausanne and Geneva. Kerkenrath also wrote for the arts sections of various Swiss newspapers, for the music magazine “Opernwelt” and for the Zurich-based “Migros-Kulturprozent” programme. In 1984 he founded the “Festival Théâtres d'Eté” in Nyon on the shores of Lake Geneva and was its director until he took up his position at Bayer in 1986.

As head of Bayer’s Cultural Affairs Department in Leverkusen, Kerkenrath has set innovative accents, introducing themed seasonal programmes and involving Bayer’s other sites in North Rhine-Westphalia. He also collaborated with many Bayer subsidiaries abroad, focusing particularly on cultural relations with France. Since 2000 Nikolas Kerkenrath has been a member of the Deutsch-Französischer Kulturrat (German-French Council of Culture). France has honoured him with the “Chevalier de l’Ordre National du Mérite” and the “Officier de l’Ordre National du Mérite” for his services to promoting cultural dialogue between Germany and France.

With the anniversary season “A Century of Bayer.Kultur” celebrating one hundred years of cultural activities at Bayer and “A Cultural Venue Turns 100” marking the centenary of the Erholungshaus, Nikolas Kerkenrath is bowing out after 22 years of commitment to Bayer’s cultural activities.