Good news for all fans of Sebastian Knauer - the pianist is back at the Konzerthaus with Mozart's Concerto in D minor, premiered in 1785. Compared to earlier works in this genre, the orchestra is increasingly taking on the role of piano partner, which is of course good news for the Konzerthausorchester.

Konzerthausorchester Berlin, Jan Willem de Vriend

Konzerthaus Berlin

Sofia Gubaidulina's ‘Fairytale Poem’ from 1971, with which the Konzerthausorchester and Joana Mallwitz begin their concert, is, according to the composer, about a little piece of chalk with big dreams of marvellous things that it wants to draw. Unfortunately, it is only used as blackboard chalk at school and is eventually thrown away. A boy finds it and begins to draw castles, gardens and sunsets on the street. The chalk is too happy to realize that it is finally disintegrating.

Konzerthausorchester Berlin, Joana Mallwitz

Originally from the French Basque region, Maurice Ravel had a lifelong penchant for Spanish folk music. Alongside the "Bolero" and the "Rhapsodie espagnole", his short opera L'HEURE ESPAGNOLE, premiered in 1911, is the best-known example of Ravel's sophisticated stylisation of Spanish dance rhythms - and like the "Bolero", the almost hour-long stage work about the sexually unfulfilled watchmaker's wife Concepciòn is a masterpiece of the laconic elegance typical of Ravel. The celebrated mezzo-soprano Marianne Crebassa can be heard in the role of Concepción, with the young French conductor Maxime Pascal conducting the one-act opera, which is paired with Rimsky-Korsakov's symphonic suite "Scheherazade".

Symphony Concert: Rimsky-Korsakov and Ravel

Deutsche Oper Berlin

RKC chief conductor Justin Doyle has selected three compositions for the joint concert: James MacMillan's setting of the medieval sequence Stabat Mater, Maximilian Steinberg's "Passion Week" and the Chamber Symphony in C minor op. 110a by Dmitri Shostakovich. In his eighth string quartet, which forms the basis for this composition, Shostakovich looks back on his life musically: "I thought that after my death, no one would probably compose a work in my memory. So I decided to compose such a work myself."

EPSG:4326

RIAS Chamber Choir & Ensemble Resonanz

Berliner Philharmonie

Off to Italy! If not in person, you can at least escape the grey of Berlin for a while with the Konzerthausorchester, Joana Mallwitz and our former artist in residence violist Antoine Tamestit. First, Swedish composer Andrea Tarrodi will take you through picturesque Ligurian villages.

Do you ever wonder during a symphony concert im Großen Saal how the Konzerthausorchester actually manages to play together so perfectly? What does a conductor and the individual musicians in the instrumental groups contribute? Successful orchestral playing, like successful coexistence in a democratic society, is based on listening to each other and creating polyphony together. In our workshop, you can literally experience this for yourself - even without any previous musical knowledge.

The Orchestra Society

Music is time in sound. Sometimes it is fast, sometimes very slow and extended. The tempo of the music can be like a heartbeat, have a steady pulse or expand like the universe. In this concert we rush, hearing and feeling, from the infinity of the atmosphere of space through the seasons and times of day to the now, immediately - in this moment.

Children's Day: Family Concert with the Konzerthaus Orchestra

„It's the sound in particular. Nobody else has it in this way [...] . And I think it's also the way you present the music to the audience. For me, it's very important that you have very quick access to the audience.“ This is how the renowned American baroque specialist, conductor and harpsichordist William Christie describes the French ensemble Les Arts Florissants, which he has led since 1979.

Konzerthausorchester Berlin, William Christie

To this day, "Till Eulenspiegel's Merry Pranks" is one of Richard Strauss' best-known works, not least because Strauss uses the boldness of his orchestral treatment to create a musical depiction of Eulenspiegel's pranks that is as drastic as it is memorable and does not even shy away from the - apparent - end of the prankster on the gallows. Lorenzo Viotti, who not only conducts Strauss' tone poem in this family concert but also explains it himself, returns to the Deutsche Oper Berlin with this Strauss programme, where he made his successful debut in 2023 with Mahler's First Symphony.

Family Concert

With his symphonic poems such as "Till Eulenspiegels lustige Streiche", "Ein Heldenleben" and "Also sprach Zarathustra", Richard Strauss became the most internationally acclaimed young German composer around 1900. Hotly disputed due to the drastic nature of his musical language, these works made Strauss the epitome of the "young savage", who did not shy away from musical shock value for the sake of effect. With the orchestra of the Deutsche Oper Berlin, Lorenzo Viotti, chief conductor of the Amsterdam Opera and one of the most celebrated conductors of his generation, shows that the fascination of the symphonic composer Richard Strauss is still unbroken today.

Symphony Concert: Richard Strauss

The one-hour short concerts ‘8Zehn30’ on Thursdays from 18:30 at the Konzerthaus Berlin are always short and sweet: let go of everyday life and simply immerse yourself in 60 minutes of music without a break - regardless of whether the end of the working day is already in sight or another evening shift has to be put in. The orchestra musicians of the Konzerthausorchester Berlin accompany their audience through a short(er) concert evening - from the personal introduction to the after-concert drinks at the bar in the Beethoven Hall.

8ZEHN30 – Short Concert

Our former chief conductor Christioph Eschenbach is back on the podium of the Konzerthausorchester and is bringing a highly talented young pianist with him: The 19-year-old Simon Haje will play Beethoven's fourth piano concerto from 1805, which already points in the direction of Romanticism. Robert Schumann was not the only one who loved the work, which is the first of its genre to begin directly with the solo instrument. The audience also liked it extraordinarily well straight away. Bruckner's Symphony No. 3 did not fare so well at first, which is why the easily unsettled composer revised it more often than any other of his nine symphonies. It was not until 1890 (17 years after the completion of the first version) that musicians and Viennese audiences finally stopped objecting and the work was finalised!

Konzerthausorchester Berlin, Christoph Eschenbach

At our espresso concerts in the early afternoon, we serve two kinds of caffeine - in cups and, of course, musically: outstanding young musicians present surprise programs that really wake you up - in this case on the podium of the Konzerthausorchester Berlin and as a violin soloist.

Espresso concert with the Konzerthausorchester Berlin

Florian Illies had his big breakthrough as a chronicler of the German sensibility with his first novel, Generation Golf . Most recently, his feature compilations 1913 and Love in Times of Hate have delighted audiences. These works bring the eras shortly before the world wars to life. Most recently, the trained art historian Illies turned far back into German Romanticism and, in his novel Magic of Silence, based on the life of the painter Caspar David Friedrich, traced an era of German history that bears the seeds of modernity. He presents Friedrich as a painter of God-fearing inwardness on the edge of the abyss of abstraction. The symphony concert Sound of Silence provides the soundtrack and shows that Friedrich was not the only one to take this artistic path.

Symphony Concert: Sound of Silence

Komische Oper Berlin @Schillertheater

It is exactly 100 years since the birth of Pierre Boulez, the influential, groundbreaking composer and conductor who was closely associated with the Staatskapelle Berlin. He often conducted concerts by the orchestra, which appointed him honorary conductor in 2005 on the occasion of his 80th birthday. This year's FESTTAGE concert will feature music that is directly associated with Boulez, music by two composers with whom he had a special relationship, Alban Berg and Gustav Mahler. There will also be a composition by Boulez himself, the Notations for large orchestra, with which the Staatskapelle is very familiar thanks to repeated performances in the past.

Festive Concert Staatskapelle Berlin

Hans Christian Andersen's fairy tale of the Little Mermaid is world-famous: In the depths of the sea, the mermaid swaps her fish tail for legs with the sea witch so that she can emerge into the human world. This costs her her voice. During a storm, she rescues a prince. However, he ends up marrying someone else and she, the creature of nature, has to perish as foam on the waves. Alexander Zemlinsky has captured her tragic fate in impressive, dazzling orchestral colours.

Berlin Konzerthaus Orchestra, Juraj Valčuha

There is a bittersweet note in the music of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart that people have been struggling to describe for centuries. Is it the happiness in the depths? Or the melancholy in the sweetness? Parallel to Le nozze di Figaro, the Piano Concerto No. 22 is a work that has exactly that character tone and which the Norwegian pianist Christian Ihle Hadland takes on: gripping and dance-like - and not banal for a second. Elena Kats-Chernin's Dance of the Paper Umbrellas opens the program just as light-footed as Mozart. Franz Schubert's 4th Symphony is nicknamed "Tragic", but takes the audience on a dramatic, musically stirring journey. Grażyna Bacewicz's fast-paced overture for orchestra sets the stage. A rollercoaster of (spring) emotions!

Symphony Concert: Spring Feelings

Ernst Reuter Hall

„The 'Concert Românesc' reflects my deep love for Romanian folk music and Romanian-speaking culture as such. The piece was immediately banned and only performed many decades later,“ says Ligeti about his 1951 work, which was banned at the time due to some dissonances that were considered undesirable.

Konzerthausorchester Berlin, Anja Bihlmaier

The Konzerthausorchester invites families to the Great Hall on Sundays at 11.00 - croissants and hot chocolate included! A musician always leads through the program. They reveal secrets from everyday life in the orchestra and invite you to join in. Meanwhile, younger siblings between the ages of 3 and 6 are very welcome at the “Musical childcare”.

Mozart-Matinee

Four horns and orchestra usually means that Robert Schumann's lively concert piece written in 1849 is on the programme. Not so this time: Estonian composer Erkki-Sven Tüür has written a new work for the horn quartet german hornsound, which it premiered two years ago. The ensemble includes KHO horn player Timo Steininger.

Orchestral events in Berlin

Konzerthausorchester Berl...

Konzerthausorchester Berlin

Konzerthausorchester Berl...

Konzerthausorchester Berlin

Symphony Concert: Rimsky-...

Deutsche Oper Berlin

RIAS Chamber Choir & Ense...

Ensemble Resonanz

Konzerthausorchester Berl...

Konzerthausorchester Berlin

The Orchestra Society

Konzerthausorchester Berlin

Children's Day: Family Co...

Konzerthausorchester Berlin

Konzerthausorchester Berl...

Konzerthausorchester Berlin

Family Concert

Deutsche Oper Berlin

Symphony Concert: Richard...

Deutsche Oper Berlin

8ZEHN30 – Short Concert

Konzerthausorchester Berlin

Konzerthausorchester Berl...

Konzerthausorchester Berlin

Espresso concert with the...

Konzerthausorchester Berlin

Symphony Concert: Sound o...

Komische Oper Berlin

Festive Concert Staatskap...

Staatsoper Berlin

Berlin Konzerthaus Orches...

Konzerthausorchester Berlin

Symphony Concert: Spring ...

Komische Oper Berlin

Konzerthausorchester Berl...

Konzerthausorchester Berlin

Mozart-Matinee

Konzerthausorchester Berlin

Konzerthausorchester Berl...

Konzerthausorchester Berlin