Name: Joy, beautiful spark of the gods
Start: 2026-01-02T18:00:00
Location: CityPalais

Eleanor Lyons

Stefan Blunier

Johannes Kammler

Marco Jentzsch

Katrin Wundsam

Duisburger Philharmoniker

In a musical rally in the countryside, the Duisburg Philharmonic Orchestra, together with the Nature Workshop – Association for Environmental Education, invites all curious environmental detectives to take a closer look at the surroundings of the Six Lakes Plateau in Duisburg-Wedau. On their exploratory journey through the forest, all participants will combine the themes of music and nature in an exciting and creative way.

Owl and woodpecker in the forest concert

Duisburg-Wedau station

As curator of the Eigenzeit Festival 2026, singer Kamalini Mukherji invites Duisburg audiences to experience the musical culture of her Indian homeland in as many different facets as possible. A leading exponent of this musical genre known as Rabindra Sangeet, she will present the chants of Indian Nobel Prize winner Rabindranath Tagore (1861–1941) at her festival performance: a lyrical-musical Gesamtkunstwerk that Kamalini Mukherji cultivates in the spirit of the performance tradition and, inspired by her own literary and musical ideas, develops in a contemporary way. In Duisburg, she will be joined by prominent guests Bickram Ghosh, one of the greatest masters of Indian tabla, who has received numerous Grammy awards and the Sangeet Natak Akademi Award, India's highest honor for the performing arts, and the celebrated violinist Kala Ramnath, who will enrich the Rabindra Sangeet evening with the melodic and gentle tones of the classical Indian violin. For the first time, the three of them will share the same stage. All arrangements from this diverse selection of Tagore's songs are by the performing artists. Exciting musical discoveries are guaranteed.

Tagore Song Night

Landschaftspark Duisburg-Nord

There are seasons all over the world, but depending on where we are, they look – or sound – different. Around 300 years ago, Antonio Vivaldi set spring, summer, autumn, and winter to music in a "European" way in his concert cycle "The Four Seasons." Kala Ramnath, in turn, explores the seasons of her home country India (divided into six periods) in her composition "Indian Seasons," arranged by the accomplished composer and sitar player Indro Roy-Chowdhury. Following the opening concert – together with the celebrated percussionist Bickram Ghosh – the master of the Indian violin will then contrast her musical impressions of the cycle of the seasons with Vivaldi's famous concertos. Both works will enter into a global, not merely meteorological, dialogue – at the height of the Duisburg spring – which is thematically complemented by Kala Ramnath's new work "Panchabhoota – The Voice of Nature." In five movements, the composer deals with the classical Indian pentad of the primal elements ether (Akash), air (Vayu), fire (Agni), water (Āpas) and earth (Prithvi).

East-Western Seasons

Steinhof Duisburg

This festival evening at the Church of Our Lady also offers an opportunity to experience a significant Indian musical tradition at its highest artistic level. With her penetrating voice, agile body, and dreadlocks passionately swirling through the air, Parvathy Baul has inspired audiences in over 40 countries over the past decades with the music of the Baul movement: a wandering group of musicians who have been at home in the rural culture of Bengal for centuries and who, in their art of combining song and dance, bring together influences from Hinduism and Muslim-Sufi tradition. During her Eigenzeit performance in Duisburg, Parvathy Baul – honored in 2019 by the Indian government with the Sangeet Natak Akademi Award, the country's highest honor for performing artists – will engage in a transcultural musical exchange with musicians from the Duisburg Philharmonic, among others, as part of a solo recital. Beforehand, she will give an introduction to the fascinating subject of Baul philosophy and its deeply spiritual practice.

The Spiritual Experience of Baul

Kulturkirche Liebfrauen Duisburg

Having already conducted two hugely popular works from the symphonic canon this season – Beethoven's 9th Symphony and Bruckner's 7th Symphony – Stefan Blunier 's third guest appearance presents compositions we don't often encounter in concert. Dmitri Shostakovich may be one of the 20th century's most important composers, but with "Two Pieces by Domenico Scarlatti for Wind Orchestra" we experience him at the very beginning of his career, before he was banned by the Soviet cultural watchdogs. The program then features Paul Hindemith, ostracized by the Nazis, one of Duisburg-born Frank Peter Zimmermann 's favorite composers . His recording of Hindemith's Violin Concerto has even been praised in the music press as a new benchmark recording: a work that shows the composer less as a feared "public enemy," but rather exposes his accessible, lyrical side. The final movement of Carl Nielsen's Symphony No. 4 offers a spectacular "duel" between two timpani. Here, the horrors of the First World War resonate, to which the composer counters the "inextinguishable" in the hymn-like chorale at the end: the elemental will to live, as Nilsen himself interpreted the title.

The Indelible

CityPalais

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

The Artist in Residence for the 2025/2026 season will meet the curator of the Eigenzeit Festival: In a unique artistic encounter between human voice and mandolin, Avi Avital and Kamalini Mukherji will concluding the "Music of Now – Eigenzeit" festival with a joint program that juxtaposes the classical music of the West with that of the Indian subcontinent in a fluid exchange. The evening's artists will perform music by contemporary British composer David Bruce, who explores the hours of the day and their particular moods in his new work for voice, mandolin, sarod – an Indian long-necked lute – and string quartet. The changing times of day – morning, evening, and night – occupy a special place in the raga system of classical Indian music and thus also have a profound influence on the raga-based songs of Rabindranath Tagore. This inspired Kamalini Mukherji to create a program and album with a similar theme several years ago. In any case, the Duisburg audience can expect a sensual and poetic concert experience in which different musical worlds flow into one another.

Day and Night

Ever since her sensational concert with the Berlin Philharmonic and its former chief conductor Claudio Abbado in 2007, Iveta Apkalna has performed on almost every major stage in the world and on the most magnificent concert organs around the globe. Her home, however, is in Hamburg, as titular organist of the Klais organ in the Great Hall of the Elbphilharmonie, which she ceremoniously inaugurated in 2017 with the Hamburg Philharmonic State Orchestra and Kent Nagano himself. The Latvian organist's concert in Duisburg will focus on her compatriot Pēteris Vasks, who celebrates his 80th birthday on April 16, 2026, and is considered one of the greatest names among contemporary composers. His work is closely connected to his Latvian homeland: to its traditional folklore as well as the painful history of his people. Also from the Baltics is the Estonian composer Arvo Pärt, who, like his colleague, is a celebrity among living composers: In September 2025, he will turn a proud 90. Joining these two contemporaries is the Baroque composer Johann Sebastian Bach, one of the greatest composers of all time. He not only composed, but was also one of the best organists of his era.

Baltic triumvirate

In 2026, the Duisburg Music and Art School will present the annual Choir Academy project "DU sing(s)t!" in cooperation with Duisburg elementary and special needs schools and the JeKits project with a focus on "Singing." This year, around 300 students and their teachers, as well as JeKits teachers from the Duisburg Music and Art School, will be on board. Under the direction of Mirko van Stiphaut, a teen band from the Music and Art School will provide the appropriate musical accompaniment. "Hey, let's sing" is the name of this year's colorful program of traditional children's songs and well-known pop songs, with which the Duisburg kids will take to the big stage under the overall direction of Anne-Sarah Gibson.

YOU sing!

Where streams of tourists now flock, artistic activity reigned for centuries. Outstanding composers such as Giovanni Gabrieli and Francesco Usper, as church musicians around 1600, used the galleries of St. Mark's Basilica in Venice to experiment with the new concept of polyphony. Musical successors such as Baldassare Galuppi and Antonio Lotti, also major figures in Venetian music history, were often no less experimental. In the serenade concert of the Duisburg Philharmonic and their guest Frithjof Smith, their works enter into dialogue with those of lesser-known, yet all the more worthy masters—naturally, in historically informed performance practice.

2nd Serenade Concert

Hamborn Abbey

Koray Berat Sari , a multi-award-winning bağlama player, jams with a youth ensemble, can be seen in theater and music projects, and performs with musicians from the Duisburg Philharmonic. During his visits to Duisburg schools, he brings a wide selection of saz instruments, including the bağlama, the oud, the duduk, and the daf. Where do the instruments come from, and what do they have in common? The community musician and his guests demonstrate how to tap along to the beat or drum with the tongue to the music. The rule for the students is: get involved in the body percussion!

saz4teens

In the final chamber concert of the season, Artist in Residence Avi Avital once again demonstrates his full artistic range: The Israeli musician is not only a virtuoso of the classical mandolin, but is also at home in a wide variety of genres and styles. To pursue this passion for making music beyond narrow genre boundaries at the highest level, he founded the ensemble "Between Worlds" in 2014. Its members are all classically trained musicians, but are equally at home in non-classical repertoire. Together, they combine various musical worlds in their programs, exploring the specific musical culture of a particular geographical region. This time, the journey takes them to the south of Italy, more precisely to Apulia and the surrounding musical cultures. With a combination of classical compositions, folk music, and arrangements created especially for the program, they explore the region in all its historical and contemporary significance: from traditional folklore to the Neapolitan Baroque to the present day – linked by the mandolin as an iconic instrument of Italian folk music. Vocal support for the musical journey through Italy comes from Apulian singer Alessia Tondo, one of the leading representatives of traditional music in her homeland.

Trip to Italy

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.