"You will rise, yes, you will rise, my heart, in a flash!" So it goes in Mahler's Symphony No. 2, and so it will be for the people of Bonn and the entire Beethoven Orchestra when the mighty first chord of Beethoven's last piano concerto resounds on Tuesday, December 16, 2025: After nine and a half years of renovation, the Beethoven Hall—our Beethoven Hall and yours—will reopen! We have fanned out into the city, we have tried to win your hearts, and you have remained loyal to us throughout the pandemic. We have played in factory halls, on construction sites, in hotels, gymnasiums, and schools; we have presented ourselves as a large orchestra and in small ensembles.

Long Beethoven Night

Beethoven Hall

A new space! One that hasn't yet been explored, researched, earned: This is the joy we've been blessed with with the Beethoven Hall's new studio! It's a truly state-of-the-art small concert hall. Versatile, clear, capable of even the softest tones. We'd like to inaugurate our rehearsal and concert hall with the most classic of all pieces: Beethoven's Symphony No. 5 is on the program for our first Pur concert of the season. As always in this series: a concert for beginners and experts, for old hands and newbies.

Beethoven 5

Even though our Christmas concert in the Kreuzkirche has become a beloved tradition, it is far from routine: the Christmas customs of the countries we visit musically, the moods and languages ​​of different styles and ensembles are too diverse. This year we're traveling back to Germany's past: Christmas with "Papa Bach" in a small Silesian village or with Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy in Berlin. In the 1820s, there was already a Christmas market there with over 100 stalls, the sensation perhaps being the evening illuminations, which contrasted with the darkness in which much of the city was shrouded at night.

Lights in the Darkness

Beethoven Orchester Bonn

We've long been asked to perform Beethoven's 9th Symphony on New Year's Day. And now: our first New Year's concert in the newly opened Beethoven Hall! What better time than today to sing Beethoven's message of peace and joy to the world? We look forward to outstanding soloists and our partner choir, the Bonn Philharmonic Choir, whose members will help us anchor the Beethoven Hall in Bonn's cultural heart.  And we're also looking forward to the winner of the Telekom Beethoven Competition, who will join us in playing the first notes of the new year in the hall for everyone to enjoy.

New Year's Concert

Podcast link: https://youtu.be/4hagYvrYbuM

The Artelize Podcast and Kasper Holten - Pedefining Opera for the modern world

Podcast link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d36M5Hi6O80

The Artelize Podcast - A legacy of innovation in Opera: Celebrating Marc A. Scorca

Podcast link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=59E40S_EQSY

The Artelize Podcast: A love letter that was never sent

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The Artelize Podcast and Adolfo Corrado: Mediterranean flavors, opera and social media

In the Mirror: This is our series for curious music fans, for those who think outside the box, for those for whom classical music is a part of our present, a reflection of our lives. The Spiegel concerts will take place on Thursday evenings for the first time this season. At the first concert in the series, our presenter Bettina Böttinger will meet the exceptional musician Patricia Kopatchinskaja and the top conductor Thomas Dausgaard – the latter our first guest conductor in the Beethoven Hall since the reopening celebrations.  The focus of the evening will be the Second Violin Concerto by Hungary's national composer, Béla Bartók.

Hungarian

International splendor in the newly renovated Beethoven Hall: The Beethoven Orchestra meets Danish conductor Thomas Dausgaard, who conducts at all the major venues worldwide, and world-class violinist Patricia Kopatchinskaja, a creative free spirit who repeatedly shakes the foundations of the "classical music business" and seeks to break down rigid structures. For his debut with the Beethoven Orchestra, Thomas Dausgaard has chosen Johannes Brahms's dark Fourth Symphony: a yearning work that simultaneously pays homage to the musical past – especially Johann Sebastian Bach – and looks far into the future.

Past and Future

In a little house right under a big tree and by a river teeming with fish, Little Bear and Little Tiger live a wonderful life. They are happy with everything they have and who they are. Until one day, a crate of bananas from Panama washes ashore—the beginning of a great journey to an unknown land! With new acquaintances, inventiveness, the question of what we need most in our lives, and the realization that our dream land can be anywhere.

Oh, how beautiful is Panama

Chickens juggle eggs, donkeys can barely escape amorous horses, and fish perform an addictive dance in their colorful, shimmering scales. THIS is the Carnival of Animals! The biggest animal spectacle of the year, the most unforgettable show, the most exhilarating gathering—and with you, it's even better!

Carnival of Animals

The Bonn Orchestra is back in "its" hall in the heart of the city. Reason enough for us to ask questions about the Rhineland, Bonn, the Beethoven Hall - in short, about the topic of home, together with actor Matthias Brandt, who grew up in Bonn. In our second concert, " Im Spiegel, " texts by great authors, our own reflections, and music combine to create a greater whole: a Rhenish pastiche, in which Bernd Alois Zimmermann's Rheinische Kirmestänze and Robert Schumann's Symphony No. 3, the Rhenish Symphony , are not to be missed. 

Home

Two years ago, we began our concert on the Domplatte, even before Brings came on stage, with a few bars of music that probably every older person in the Rhineland knows: the beginning of Robert Schumann's Symphony No. 3, the so-called Rhenish Symphony . Condensed into just a few bars, this opening was a TV jingle on Hier und Heute for years and stood for our entire state.

Rhenish

Each of our carnival concerts is a tribute to the magnificent Rhenish traditions. But in 2026, we have two reasons to celebrate the Prince and Bonna, all the revelers in the hall, and the Bonn Carnival Festival Committee: 200 years ago, Bonn officially celebrated its first carnival – and officiality is especially important in the Rhineland: not only because people like to follow it, but also because they like to subvert and undermine it. Thus, the founding of the Bonn Carnival Society on February 5, 1826, is the nucleus of our present-day carnival. Supported by competent carnivalists, we will embark on a tour de force through 200 years of Bonn Carnival. Hopefully, the newly renovated hall will survive our musical firecrackers and the thunderous 'alaaf' of 1,800 costumed revelers in the hall...

200 Years of Bonn Carnival – jestern, hück and morje

So long we're still alive, Denn wenn et Trömmelche jeit, Echte Fründe , or Et jitt kei Wood – we all know them, the big hits of our favorite and most colorful season. Some of these songs are more than 30 years old, can you believe it? And Carnival is even older! But what did people listen to and sing on these crazy days 200 years ago? Come with us on a carnival journey through time!

The short history of Carnival

Around 1790, there was a singer in Bonn who dominated the scene, enchanting the Prince-Bishop and his subjects and inspiring composers from near and far: Magdalena Willmann. The virtuoso and highly emotional, modern music written for her forms the lion's share of the third Hofkapelle concert of the season. She will be interpreted by a singer who is in worldwide demand in the classical repertoire and who has caused a sensation in recent years with works by Ludwig van Beethoven: the Israeli soprano Chen Reiss moved the Bonn audience two years ago in our concert with Brahms' Requiem .

The Diva from the Rhine

Kurhaus Bad Honnef

In France, the musical clock ticked differently in the 20th century than in Germany: Jean Françaix, who never composed in an avant-garde style, who remained grounded in tonality, who wrote entertaining, humorous, sentimental, and light-hearted music, is deeply revered in our neighboring country as a serious composer: something like that would never have happened here.

The Horn of the Angels

Have you ever heard a nightingale sing? The Emperor of China never has! When he hears the nightingale sing for the first time, he is amazed by its wonderful song, which had brought so many people from far and wide and which he had never even known about until then. "And the nightingale sang so beautifully that tears came to the emperor's eyes." So moved, he lets the nightingale sing day and night for him and his people. Until he is given an artfully crafted, artificial nightingale that can sing tirelessly, without a break. Replaced by a fake nightingale, the real nightingale flees, leaving the emperor and his people behind - for now. With enchanting and colorful music, this is a story about the things that make our lives rich, without any money or gold.

The Emperor's Nightingale

One work, one story: that has been the recipe for most of the concerts in our successful Pur series over the past few seasons. Some of the most beautiful musical stories can be told around the symphonies of the unique Joseph Haydn. His Symphony No. 101 (Yes, "Papa Haydn" really did write over 100 symphonies – his student Ludwig could have taken a leaf out of his book!) is a musical marvel that still amazes and makes us smile today, a work with which the composer continues to touch us like few other composers of his time can! The nickname " The Clock" , like most of the titles of Haydn's  symphonies and string quartets, does not come from the master, but was added to the composition by an enterprising publisher.

Haydn: The Clock

Musical transgressions: What worlds have we not already brought together in our "Boundless" series ! And with fado icon Ana Moura, we are opening a new chapter in this series: The yearning, passionate, infinitely colorful music from the far southwest of Europe is on the program for our second "Boundless " concert.  Ana Moura doesn't dwell on the glorious past of her music, but rather takes it further, enriching it with modern, electronic elements.

Ana Moura

A great journey into the inner human being: This is Johann Sebastian Bach's St. Matthew Passion , perhaps the most significant religious musical work of the 18th century, which can still touch us today as it did 300 years ago: with its story of faith and doubt, of loyalty and betrayal, of hope and despair. In contrast to its dramatic sister, the St. John Passion , the focus of the St. Matthew Passion is on the inner journey that we all take when we relive and experience the suffering of Jesus Christ. And the St. Matthew Passion is not just a work for believers, for those connected to the Christian religion, but it also questions our values, our relationship to life and death, to this world and the next. The scope and instrumentation are larger, more powerful than in the St. John Passion : two choirs and two orchestras are contrasted, symbolizing the earthly and the divine spheres.

St. Matthew Passion

Great classical music in our chamber concert series: Every year we invite an international ensemble to the Old Federal Council and look forward to a world-class chamber music evening. This time, the French Quatuor Hanson is our guest, a young French ensemble that will present three pieces of chamber music from Austria: two important works by Mozart and Beethoven, as well as a youthful work by the far too long neglected Johanna Müller-Hermann. Listening to their poetically fragrant Quartet in E-flat major is a heartwarming experience!

Mind and Heart

You can hear them from far away: chattering wild geese flying overhead in a perfect "V," on their way to their breeding grounds in Lapland. If they fly low enough, we can hear their powerful wings. And maybe even Nils, the boy transformed into a gnome; this cheeky boy who couldn't stop teasing the animals on his parents' farm and was full of silly ideas, who one day met a gnome who enchanted him into his own kind, so that from then on he could be teased by the animals.

Events in Bonn

Long Beethoven Night

Beethoven Orchester Bonn

Beethoven 5

Beethoven Orchester Bonn

Lights in the Darkness

Beethoven Orchester Bonn

New Year's Concert

Beethoven Orchester Bonn

The Artelize Podcast and ...

Artelize

The Artelize Podcast - A ...

Artelize

The Artelize Podcast: A l...

Artelize

The Artelize Podcast and ...

Artelize

Hungarian

Beethoven Orchester Bonn

Past and Future

Beethoven Orchester Bonn

Oh, how beautiful is Pana...

Beethoven Orchester Bonn

Carnival of Animals

Beethoven Orchester Bonn

Home

Beethoven Orchester Bonn

Rhenish

Beethoven Orchester Bonn

200 Years of Bonn Carniva...

Beethoven Orchester Bonn

The short history of Carn...

Beethoven Orchester Bonn

The Diva from the Rhine

Beethoven Orchester Bonn

The Horn of the Angels

Beethoven Orchester Bonn

The Emperor's Nightingale...

Beethoven Orchester Bonn

Haydn: The Clock

Beethoven Orchester Bonn

Ana Moura

Beethoven Orchester Bonn

St. Matthew Passion

Beethoven Orchester Bonn

Mind and Heart

Beethoven Orchester Bonn

Nils Holgersson

Beethoven Orchester Bonn