Name: Excursion into the Underworld
Start: 2025-05-15T19:30:00
Location: Philharmonie Mercatorhalle

In a celebration of cultural and artistic diversity, a series of breathtaking events are set to unfold across Germany, with the Deutsche Oper am Rhein and the Duisburger Philharmoniker taking center stage. From the classic tales of Pinocchio and Beatrice di Tenda to the soulful Fado of António Zambujo, and the innovative reinterpretations by the Margulis Trio, these events promise a rich tapestry of opera and music. Join us in exploring the remarkable narratives, creative performances, and unique artistic expressions that make this a season to remember.

A Cultural Symphony: Uniting Diverse Musical Narratives

Stefan Blunier

Duisburger Philharmoniker

At the age of 22, Mascha Kaléko published her first poem and, with her poetry, in which she combined charm and humor with political acuity, became a dazzling figure in Berlin during the Weimar Republic. She was later ostracized by the Nazis because of her Jewish roots and led a life on the run, full of longing and loss. The program "I walk as if through a dream" takes us with poems and biographical information to the various stages of her life in Galicia, New York and Israel, but also to the Romanisches Café in Berlin, a popular artists' meeting place at the time. Works by Jewish composers, music from the 1920s and 1930s, and works by Chemjo Vinaver, Mascha Kaléko's second husband, are also played.

I walk as if through a dream

Lehmbruck Museum

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

The string quartet is considered the pinnacle of chamber music – and we can experience why this is so at performances by the Quatuor Ébène: In around two decades, an ensemble has grown that not only plays in the premier league of international quartets, but also regularly leaves audiences breathless with its unconditional courage to take risks and the intensity of its interpretations. Even supposedly well-known repertoire sounds refreshingly new and excitingly different with the Quatuor Ébène. For example, Joseph Haydn, who is considered the inventor of the genre. The program features one of the Viennese classic's late quartets, the String Quartet in G major, Op. 76 No. 1, in which he bundled all his achievements in this field, as a kind of legacy. The bar was thus set high for subsequent generations of composers, a fact that Johannes Brahms also felt: he spent around 20 years exploring the genre before presenting his first quartets to the public with Opus 51. Framed by the two German-speaking composers, the only string quartet by the Frenchman Maurice Ravel can be heard, which is full of wonderful sound effects.

Quatuor Ébène

CityPalais

With the end of the 2024/2025 season, Axel Kober has stepped down as General Music Director of the Duisburg Philharmonic. It was a long and fruitful collaboration, for which the conductor is now being honored with the 2025 Duisburg City Music Prize, sponsored by the Köhler-Osbahr Foundation. For him, the award is a wonderful acknowledgment – ​​"to receive feedback, so to speak, after the years spent together that what we have done has left its mark." And, of course, he will try "to continue to remain connected to Duisburg's musical life." A promise he immediately fulfills in the 4th Philharmonic Concert. After programming Arnold Schoenberg's powerful "Gurre-Lieder" in his farewell concert as General Music Director, he returns to his former orchestra conducting works by two American composers and combining them with Beethoven's Symphony No. 7: Charles Ives' "The Unanswered Question" sounds mystical and transcendental, creating an iconic work of American modernism. Meanwhile, in Samuel Barber's popular Violin Concerto, violin virtuosity and voluptuous melodies enter into a delightful liaison. Dance-like rhythms then characterize Beethoven's Seventh, which, with the Allegretto, also contains one of the greatest hits of the Viennese classic.

American and European classics

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

Although Alessandro Scarlatti is primarily admired as a composer of operas and oratorios, Concerto Köln pays tribute to him on the 300th anniversary of his death with excerpts from his instrumental works. At the same time as composers like Arcangelo Corelli, the Sicilian master developed a new musical genre with the Concerto Grosso around 1715, thus inspiring subsequent generations of composers, including Johann Adolf Hasse and George Frideric Handel. During the Duisburg visit of the celebrated period sound ensemble, founded exactly 40 years ago, these and other Baroque musical greats will enter into a shared dialogue, illuminated by atmospheric lighting.

Baroque concert in the light

Theater Duisburg

Not only Christmas carols but also numerous major and minor works of classical music will create a musical atmosphere for the most wonderful holiday of the year. In their series "Christmas in Song and Word," the Duisburg Philharmonic will perform original works and arrangements from the works of great composers this year, including the enchanting Flute Quartet in D major, K. 285, which Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart completed fittingly for the occasion on Christmas Day 1777. While alto Ingeborg Danz takes on the vocal part, narrator Bernt Hahn complements the program with Christmas stories and poems by literary classics such as Hermann Hesse, Joseph von Eichendorff, and Theodor Storm.

Christmas in song and word

Founded 40 years ago, Concerto Köln is one of the outstanding protagonists of early music. It's fortunate that the journey to Duisburg is not far – and that the Duisburg Philharmonic also includes seasoned experts in musically informed performance practice. This creates ideal conditions for an extraordinary encounter in a concert that brings together well-known and lesser-known masterpieces by composers of the 17th and 18th centuries. Examples such as those of the Italian Antonio Vivaldi, the German George Frideric Handel, the Frenchman Jean-Philippe Rameau, the Bohemian Jan Dismas Zelenka, and the Englishman Henry Purcell demonstrate that all of Europe was shaken by the tremendous musical developments of this period. Some of these masters will perform "vocal specialties" – arias from operas or sacred works – or, like the piano pioneer Domenico Scarlatti, excerpts from their instrumental works. The name of countertenor Valer Sabadus, who is another guest from Cologne in Duisburg, shines as brilliantly as his voice.

From all over Europe

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

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

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

 Conductor Stefan Blunier has put together an exciting program full of discoveries and various references for his return to the Duisburg Philharmonic. At the end is Pyotr I. Tchaikovsky's darkly flowing "Symphony of Fate", which fits wonderfully with the magnificent overture by Dora Pejačević at the beginning, which also has a tragic undertone. The Croatian countess who composed was a real superstar during her lifetime, but was pushed out of the collective memory by music history. However, she is slowly emerging from oblivion, thanks in part to initiatives such as those of Stefan Blunier and the Duisburg Philharmonic. The program then includes one of Franz Liszt's rarely played symphonic poems. In it, the virtuoso piano composer deals with the ancient Orpheus myth, which also builds a content-related bridge to Manfred Trojahn's work, which will premiere in 2023. The name "Achéron" also comes from Greek mythology and refers to the river of suffering and pain into which the other rivers of the underworld flow. The concert is thus also a continuation of the orchestra's intensive engagement with the work of one of the most important living composers.

Excursion into the Underworld

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