Ludger Engels

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

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

Theater Duisburg

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

CityPalais

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

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

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

"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

The Küppersmühle Museum in Duisburg's inner harbor is one of the largest German private museums. Covering a good 6,100 square meters, it features highlights from the Ströher Collection, one of the most important and extensive collections of German art after 1945.

In three concert performances, musicians from the Duisburg Philharmonic and director Ludger Engels explore new levels of experience that are developed from the themes and content of the exhibited works or enter into a direct dialogue with them. These sound interventions open up new perspectives on the architecture of the house as well as the works in the collection and the current exhibition.

Concerts in the Museum Küppersmühle