Name: NDR Chamber Concert
Start: 2026-06-16T19:30:00
Location: Elbphilharmonie Hamburg

Elbphilharmonie

 NDR Elbphilharmonie Orchestra

NDR Chamber Concert

Elbphilharmonie Hamburg

An elephant hatches from an egg. It grows, makes friends and encounters all kinds of challenges. A concert about the cycle of life and about friendship through thick and thin – with dance, a puppet show and live music.

Kindergarten Concert »Elephant from the Egg«

Musicians from a wide range of different countries and from different continents play together in Bridges Kammerorchester. And you can hear it: the orchestra plays Arabian, Persian and European classical music, jazz, East European, Asiatic and Latin American music, their instruments also come from all over the world. The musicians incorporate their respective cultural experiences. What’s more, they compose all the pieces they play in the concert themselves – rather unique for an orchestra!

Bridges Chamber Orchestra

The harp is often associated with heavenly sounds, which is naturally a wonderful fit for Christmas. However, the concert with world-renowned musician Xavier de Maistre demonstrates that the instrument offers a far greater wealth of expressive possibilities. De Maistre has long since made a name for himself as a musician who expands the boundaries and repertoire of his instrument with virtuosity and a willingness to experiment. When in doubt, he pragmatically takes to pen and paper and arranges existing works for the harp. In his current Advent program, however, this was almost unnecessary: ​​in concerts by Handel and Boieldieu, the charismatic Frenchman showcases the immense – and unexpected – sound spectrum of his instrument: from delicately shimmering melodies to rich chords and thundering basses. The Festival Strings Lucerne is contributing a true Romantic classic with Tchaikovsky's String Serenade.

Xavier de Maistre / Lucerne Strings Festival

Faith - hope - love, these three famous terms from the Bible, they characterise Pēteris Vasks, the globally acclaimed composer from Latvia. Faith: clearly very important to him. Hope: never give up! But the most important thing for him: love! And so he writes modern classical music that goes straight to the heart. And yet his artistic credo is: music must never be »sweet«!

RIX Piano Quartet

Freshly sworn in as Leipzig's Thomaskontor, Johann Sebastian Bach was full of energy in 1723, composing, among other works, the "Magnificat," a eulogy cantata for the Advent season for his new choir. Shortly after the annunciation by the angel Gabriel, Mary tells her cousin the good news of her pregnancy with the Savior. This message sounds especially joyful when Vox Luminis, an outstanding early music ensemble, is on stage.

Bach: Magnificat

A woman playing the cello? Scandalous! At least, that's what people thought in the mid-19th century, when Lise Cristiani launched her extraordinary career. Sol Gabetta sets out to trace the musical path of her courageous predecessor. It goes without saying that Mendelssohn's famous Song Without Words couldn't be missing from this program – after all, it's dedicated to Lise Cristiani and is the only work of this "genre" written for cello. And cellists like Sol Gabetta have another achievement to thank this innovative pioneer for: She was one of the first to perform with an instrument that could be fixed to the floor using the now-common spike, allowing the soloist greater freedom of movement and allowing her to wear wider skirts. Clear the stage for women on the cello!

Sol Gabetta / Gabetta Chapel

Hamburg's former General Music Director Simone Young has always championed the works of Austrian composer Franz Schmidt. She traces her fondness for his music back to her years in Vienna, where Schmidt is a staple of the repertoire. In the north, however, Young was the first in a long time to revive Schmidt's monumental oratorio "The Book with Seven Seals." For her guest conducting engagement with the NDR Elbphilharmonie Orchestra, she now brings Schmidt's rarely heard Second Symphony in E-flat major to the table.

NDR Elbphilharmonie Orchestra / Gautier Capuçon / Simone Young

The Ensemble Masques, led by harpsichordist Olivier Fortin, opens this season's harpsichord focus with 18th-century French chamber music. The program includes several solo harpsichord concertos by Baroque master Jean-Philippe Rameau and his contemporaries.

Ensemble Masques / Olivier Fortin, Cembalo

"For me as a child, Umm Kulthum was the voice of God," reveals Ghalia Benali. "Her voice touched the soul, not just the ears." Born in Brussels and raised in an artistic family in Tunisia, the singer was exposed to different musical styles at an early age – and continues to dance between cultures to this day. One of her greatest inspirations remains Umm Kulthum, arguably the most famous voice in the Middle East, who serves as Benali's "honorary grandmother." Together with the Iranian setar virtuoso Kiya Tabassian and his Ensemble Constantinople, she is dedicated to setting the poems of the "Rubaiyat" to music.

Ghalia Benali / Constantinople Ensemble

There is no better way to start Advent Sunday than with a varied, atmospheric organ concert: Christian Schmitt, renowned concert organist with a professorship at the Rotterdam Conservatory, invites you to a matinee with a program that presents the "queen of instruments" from the most beautiful romanticism to a piece exclusively for the pedals (i.e. played with the feet!).