Duisburg is set to become a bustling hub of musical and cultural activity with an eclectic mix of events that promise to captivate audiences. From timeless operas like 'La traviata' to innovative concert meditations and thought-provoking memorials for artists, the city is celebrating music in all its forms. The Deutsche Oper am Rhein and the Duisburger Philharmoniker are at the forefront, bringing a range of performances that delve into operatic classics, childhood literature in musical form, and poignant tributes to historical composers.

Duisburg's Diverse Musical Extravaganza: Opera, Concerts, and Innovative Performances

Akiko Suwanai

José Gallardo

Duisburger Philharmoniker

Music touches the soul, and regardless of cognitive or physical limitations, enjoying music together is almost always possible. In dementia-related changes, music can play a key role, providing access where language no longer can. It can evoke memories and appeal to everyone's emotions equally. "Heart Music" offers a relaxing hour for those affected, their relatives, caregivers, and the whole family. The concerts take place in the barrier-free foyer of the Philharmonie Mercatorhalle and are particularly suitable for music lovers who need assistance or simply want to enjoy a concert in the afternoon.

Heart music

Philharmonic Mercatorhalle, foyer

Beethoven's freedom opera "Fidelio" was already on the program at the beginning of the season, a work that ends with an emphatic choral finale in which the humanistic convictions of its creator burst forth in powerful sound. And this also applies to his 9th Symphony, a work with which Beethoven, so to speak, embraces all of humanity. "All men become brothers," it says in Schiller's "Ode to Joy," which Beethoven used as the text for his magnificent finale. While people probably didn't know what was happening to them at the premiere—a powerful choral finale in a symphony had never been seen before—Beethoven's music already swept the euphoric audience to their feet. Since then, the 9th Symphony, and especially its final movement, has become a true global hit. For example, the Council of Europe declared the instrumental prelude to the "Ode to Joy" the European anthem in 1972. Stefan Blunier, who returns to the podium of the Duisburg Philharmonic twice this season, conducts an exquisite quartet of soloists in a work that could hardly be more relevant even in our time.

Joy, beautiful spark of the gods

CityPalais

Despite the spirit of optimism, the new year also offers an opportunity for reflection: In 2025, the music world celebrated the 200th birthday of Johann Strauss II. For the Duisburg Philharmonic's Salon Orchestra, this is just one of many reasons to celebrate the master of three-quarter time at its New Year's Concert. In cooperation with the Susanne Scholten Foundation, the ensemble presents sparkling waltz classics combined with arias and duets from "Die Fledermaus," "The Gypsy Baron," "A Night in Venice," and—to give another operetta king, Emmerich Kálmán, a voice—"Die Csárdásfürstin." Also joining in singing and enjoying champagne are soprano Alexandra von der Weth and baritone Junsung Kim.

New Year's Concert with the Salon Orchestra

Theater Duisburg

The Minguet Quartet's programs are not just chamber music of the highest caliber, but always also an invitation to the audience to engage in dialogue and participation. The four musicians have already committed themselves to this with their ensemble's name: their namesake is the Spanish writer and music educator Pablo Minguet, who strove in his writings to provide access to the fine arts for all. The fourth chamber concert also features works from different eras in dialogue with each other: the concert begins in a truly classical style with one of the last quartets by Joseph Haydn, the inventor of the string quartet; at the end, we hear Schoenberg's String Quartet No. 2, nothing less than a milestone in New Music – the transition to atonality. Tradition and modernity also converge in the works of the Romantics Johannes Brahms and Robert Schumann, as they are performed in the transcription by Aribert Reimann, one of the most distinguished composers of the second half of the 20th century, who died in 2024. The quartet also enters into dialogue with soprano Sarah Maria Sun, who is also known for her profound program ideas and as a specialist in contemporary music: she has already sung more than 400 world premieres.

Dialogues

Duisburg audiences will likely still remember Benjamin Reiners fondly: In March 2025, he conducted a special concert in the "Philharmonic Debate" series, in which composers of the past engage in creative exchange with each other through their works—a debate using musical means, so to speak. The Romantic composer Brahms now kicks off this program. Although he initially failed to win over his contemporaries with his monumental symphonic Piano Concerto No. 1, the work later established itself and became a lasting success. With Gerhard Oppitz , the concerto is in the best pianistic hands, as he is considered one of the leading Brahms interpreters.

Pianistic orchestral magic: Brahms & Pejačević

Following the Duisburg Philharmonic's guest performance at the Cologne Philharmonic at the beginning of the season, the Cologne-based WDR Symphony Orchestra is now making a return visit to the Mercatorhalle Philharmonie. Romanian-born Cristian Măcelaru was Chief Conductor there from 2019 until the summer of 2025 – and will continue to be associated with the orchestra as Artistic Partner before Marie Jacquot becomes the new Chief Conductor in the cathedral city starting in the 2026/2027 season. Over the years they have worked together, Măcelaru and the WDR Symphony Orchestra have repeatedly explored the symphonies of Gustav Mahler. And they will also be performing Mahler during their guest performance in Duisburg. More specifically, his Symphony No. 5, whose famous "Adagietto" was a captivatingly beautiful declaration of love by the composer to his wife Alma, and which Luchino Visconti used as the atmospheric soundtrack for his Thomas Mann film adaptation "Death in Venice." Before that, there are two Tchaikovsky pieces and two orchestral pieces with solo cello: the night-dreamy "Nocturne," in which the cello is allowed to sing its wonderful utterance in an elegiac melody, and the "Rococo Variations," a musical homage by Tchaikovsky to his revered role model, Mozart. The young star cellist Kian Soltani makes his Duisburg debut as soloist.

WDR Symphony Orchestra

Almost exactly 100 years separate the two works in this program—and yet they have one thing in common: Both trios enjoyed enormous popularity immediately after their publication. Beethoven's Opus 38 was originally a septet—and in this form, it was one of his most frequently performed works. This is probably one of the reasons why he later reworked it into a piano trio, whose violin part could also be played by a clarinet. Alexander von Zemlinsky, however, had a different "role model" for his clarinet trio: his idol, Johannes Brahms. Brahms politely thanked his colleague for the flowers and advocated for its publication with his publisher, Simrock.

Trio with clarinet

"Battle of the Arts" isn't just the name of Germany's largest poetry slam organizer. It could also be the general motto under which the Duisburg Philharmonic Orchestra opens the arena for this season's Philharmonic Slam – already the fourth edition of this extraordinary series and a testament to its popularity with Duisburg audiences. Five young poets, all stars of the slamming scene, will enter the ring and engage in a competition that is as exciting as it is entertaining. Their weapons: language, facial expressions, gestures – and a microphone, so that the audience, who will ultimately choose the winning entry, can ideally absorb the verbal acrobatics unleashed this evening. In addition to the performed language, music also comes into play. In anticipation of the orchestra's 150th anniversary in 2027, the Duisburg Philharmonic Orchestra has selected works from all eras of its existence, to which the slammers will respond with their performances. This year's Philharmonic Slam is supported as part of the "Musik-Achsen-Zeiten" project within the framework of the "Neue Wege" funding program by the state of North Rhine-Westphalia.

Philharmonic Slam IV

He was perhaps the greatest genius in music history, later eclipsed, if at all, only by the child prodigy Mozart. Yet Johann Sebastian Bach not only gifted posterity with numerous musical masterpieces, but also with several sons, some of whom followed in their all-powerful father's footsteps. First and foremost, Carl Philipp Emanuel, Johann Sebastian Bach's second eldest son, whose "sensitive" style made him the most popular Bach of the second half of the 18th century—while Johann Sebastian Bach's eldest son, Wilhelm Friedemann, was famous during his lifetime primarily for his phenomenal improvisational skills on all keyboard instruments. When Asya Fateyeva and her fellow musicians perform Baroque sonatas by the Bach dynasty, they do so on an instrument that Bach himself could not have even known, for the saxophone was not invented until the 19th century. When the saxophonist approaches early music on a comparatively modern instrument, she does so in the spirit of Bach: He was not only interested in the compositional possibilities of new or improved instruments such as the "Well-Tempered Clavier," but was also extremely flexible in instrumentation questions in his masterful compositions.

Bach geniuses

David Orlowsky is an ace on the clarinet: with him, the clarinet laughs, cries, sings, and laments as if it had a voice of its own. The expressive spectrum he coaxes from his versatile instrument is certainly tremendous. The clarinetist, who makes his debut with the Duisburg Philharmonic with this concerto, is equally at home in classical music and in klezmer music, which he first encountered through his mentor and teacher Giora Feidman. And this specifically Jewish musical tradition plays a central role in Osvaldo Golijov's suspenseful suite "The Dreams and Prayers of Isaac the Blind," in which the composer tells a kind of history of Judaism—from its beginnings with Abraham to the present day. Olivier Messiaen's "Hymn" also has a religious reference, in this case to the "Holy Sacrament" of the Eucharist. Although the score was lost in the Second World War, the composer later reconstructed it from memory. In the second half of the concert, Robert Treviño , who courageously stepped in for Eun Sun Kim , who was ill at the Philharmonic's 9th Symphony in December 2022, conducts Jean Sibelius's Symphony No. 2, which evokes its creator's closeness to nature and the vastness of the Finnish landscapes. Also ingenious is the way the composer constructs an entire symphony from a small three-note motif at the beginning – right up to the grandiose finale.

Dreams and prayers

Diana Tishchenko began playing the violin at the age of six and, barely of age, became the youngest concertmaster in the history of the Gustav Mahler Youth Orchestra. But what are the duties of a concertmaster, what is her favorite music, and how does it feel to travel the world playing an almost 300-year-old violin? What the human voice can do, the clarinet can do even more. David Orlowsky discovered this when he first picked up the clarinet. "I try to use the clarinet like my voice." He founded his own trio at the age of 16. He has since won many awards and traveled the globe, exploring the boundaries between musical genres - whether classical, klezmer, or his own compositions. The Indian singer Kamalini Mukherji , who lives in New York , has been a guest in Duisburg many times. She always sees her music as a call to fight for women's rights in India and for human rights around the world. After the exclusive mini-concert in the schools, the students can talk to the three exceptional musicians and learn more about the exciting and diverse life of a musician.

solo4teens

Stadt Duisburg

Young and old listen to the music together and then embark on a journey of discovery. What do the instruments sound like, how do they produce their sound, and what does it feel like? What do Wilhelm Lehmbruck's "Kneeling Woman" or Jean Tinguely's sculptures sound like? Through music and the visual arts, sensory impressions, positive emotions, and memories are simultaneously addressed. Members of the Duisburg Philharmonic Orchestra and Sybille Kastner from the Lehmbruck Museum's art education department will be participating.

Listen to art

Lehmbruck Museum

When Akiko Suwanai won the renowned Tchaikovsky Competition in Moscow in 1990, she was just 18 years old. It was also the start of an international career, during which the Japanese violinist has been a guest in Duisburg several times. Now she is returning with an exciting program, together with the Argentinian José Gallardo, who is one of the most sought-after chamber music pianists and is making his debut in Duisburg with this concert. The duo evening begins with Ludwig van Beethoven's Violin Sonata No. 6, the dramatic style of which was the composer's immediate reaction to his increasing deafness. Erich Wolfgang Korngold's suite "Much Ado About Nothing", which is based on his symphonic incidental music for Shakespeare's play of the same name, then tells of the changing feelings of a young woman in love, while the chromatically sharpened "Four Pieces" by Anton Webern explore dynamic extremes between barely audible tones and blatant fortissimo outbursts. The final work is Schumann’s Opus 121, a work that its creator explicitly described as a “great” sonata – which refers both to its dimensions and to the demands placed on virtuoso playing.


Akiko Suwanai & Jose Gallardo

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