Name: The Secret of the Christmas Elves
Start: 2026-12-13T14:00:00
Location: Cologne Philharmonie

Vilmantas Kaliunas

Gürzenich-Orchester Köln

PhilharmonieLunch is becoming PhilharmonieProbe. PhilharmonieProbe opens its doors to offer a special insight: you can experience the resident orchestras, the Gürzenich Orchestra Cologne and the WDR Symphony Orchestra, and their guests at work, spending 30 minutes watching them rehearse the current concert programme. Take a little break from everyday life at the Cologne Philharmonie – inspiring, moving, authentic. A place filled with music, for an unusual lunch break, a break from the sounds of the city, or simply a break from the daily grind.

PhilharmonieProbe

Cologne Philharmonie

Paris! Breathless, colourful, racy and full of secrets. This is true today as it was 100 years ago, when the young American George Gershwin frequented the cafés of Montmartre, listening to the sounds of the big city and overcome with homesickness for New York, that other glamorous metropolis. In Gershwin’s musical portrait An American in Paris, revving motors, honking horns, the Cancan, Charleston, blues and ragtime merge in an irresistible symphony of the big city – a audible journey that is so concrete and thrilling that one could actually cancel one’s own city trip. The human soul with all its flights of fancy and abysses, love, desperation, death – and then there’s »Summertime«, possible the aria with the most cover versions in music history: the highlights from Gershwin’s opera Porgy and Besstransport us to a world of overpowering emotions.

Summertime

Four decades of musical excellence: 40 years ago, on 14 September 1986, the Cologne Philharmonic Hall opened its doors – with a programme featuring Romantic classics and contemporary music.

Anniversary concert Cologne Philharmonic Hall

Female Voices of Resilience brings together voices that are being silenced in Iran – and which, for that very reason, resonate all the more powerfully. In an extraordinary concert project, young Iranian female singers, who were forced to leave their country only recently, join forces with the Gürzenich Orchestra Cologne. They belong to a generation of female artists whose lives and work have been transformed following the murder of Jina Mahsa Amini in 2022. Many of them left Iran in the wake of the ensuing protests – not by choice, but out of necessity to protect their voices and their art.

Female Voices of Resilience

The Orchestra Academy of the Gürzenich Orchestra celebrates its 10-year anniversary in 2026. The training programme has become an integral part of the orchestra’s success story. During this time, approximately 80 highly gifted young musicians from 25 nations have gained important experience in a professional setting at the end or immediately after their studies. Many of these exceptional talents have since won positions in leading European orchestras. The programme features a work by Oscar Jockel especially commissioned for the Orchestra Academy as well as Igor Stravinsky’s elegantly neo-classical Pulcinella Suite.

Happy Birthday!

It took Brahms no less than 14 years to complete his First Symphony; he kept revising, postponing, and doubting – mainly himself. »I will never compose a symphony. You have no idea how we feel when we continuously hear such a giant marching behind us«, wrote the composer to the conductor Hermann Levi. The giant being Ludwig van Beethoven, whom Brahms revered as a role model, but whose genius intimidated and inhibited him in his own creative work. Ultimately, however, everything turned out for the best, and his Symphony No. 1 is one of the most brilliant masterworks in music history. Andrés Orozco-Estrada continues the grand tradition of the Gürzenich Orchestra, which has always been closely associated with Brahms’ symphonic output. Vienna’s Singverein, one of the world’s leading concert choruses, joins the orchestra in one of Brahms’ most touching choral compositions.

Into the Light

Distant relatives

Chamber Music Hall

Papa Haydn? Far from being merely dignified and formal, his symphonies are surprising, full of flashes of inspiration, play with expectations – and are full of wit. With 107 symphonies, Joseph Haydn not only left behind an impressive number, but also had a decisive influence on the genre. Mozart, Beethoven, Brahms and Mahler – they all built on the foundation laid by Haydn. With three of his favourite symphonies, Gürzenich Kapellmeister Andrés Orozco-Estrada invites you on a special journey of discovery – and takes you into the orchestra's engine room. In informal concert talks, you can hear and see how music is created, how it is refined during rehearsals – and perhaps the audience will even be allowed to have a say in one or two interpretations. An invitation to anyone who wants to experience classical music in a different way: accessible, exciting and full of the joy of discovery.

A Haydn delight

With the concert series »Bock auf Klassik?!«, the Gürzenich Orchestra Cologne invites everyone under the age of 29 to an evening that brings classical music to life in a new way: accessible, vibrant and surprisingly different. For just 8 euros, you can enjoy great works, a personal introduction to the evening’s programme, and afterwards a musical finale with a DJ, free drinks and a relaxed atmosphere in the foyer.

Fancy some classical music?!

A few years ago, Benjamin Grosvenor claimed he wasn’t really all that talented. His stellar career, however, which has made him one of the most sought-after pianists around the world today, tells a different tale. Time and again, international reviewers have praised his brilliant technical abilities, which are combined with an instinct for sound and the courage to delve deep into the realms of lyricism. This makes him the perfect choice of soloist for Sergei Rachmaninov’s Piano Concerto No. 2, a bravura signature piece combining daredevil keyboard acrobatics with intimate contemplation. Where Rachmaninov plunged straight into the maelstrom of grand emotions, Sergei Prokofiev chose serious retrospection. His dark-hued Symphony No. 6, a masterwork of pain and wistfulness, reflects the horrors of World War II. The Danish conductor Thomas Søndergård, chief conductor of the Minnesota Orchestra and the Royal Scottish National Orchestra, opens the gates to a deeply touching world of melancholy.

Breaking New Paths

Robert Schumann seems to have entered a form of creative delirium when he wrote his Cello Concerto in 1850, within the time of not even two weeks: this is no bravura tightrope act, and no self-preening soloist presented as a lion-tamer of his instrument, but rather, a composition full of enchantment and narrative strength, albeit not without dark shadows … Premonitions of coming mental-health catastrophes in the composer’s life? The young cellist Anastasia Kobekina is a graduate of the Kronberg Academy, with which the Gürzenich Orchestra continues its cooperation this season. Today, Anastasia Kobekina appears all over the world, and the newspaper »Le Figaro« described her simply as »an incomparable musician« – which makes her an ideal protagonist for one of the most intimate, profound cello concertos of the romantic era. Schumann also completed the first sketch of his Second Symphony as if in a fever dream: the draft was finished after only 16 days – but elaborating it would take far longer. At the time, Schumann was in the grip of a deep crisis, having suffered a mental and physical breakdown. Later, he would describe how working on his Second Symphony had brought respite and healing.

Delirium

Flashbacks

Featuring music by Peter I. Tchaikovsky, Nikolaj Rimskij-Korsakov, Edvard Grieg, Camille Saint-Saëns and Armas Järnefelt.