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Contemporary concerts in season 2024/25 or later
For lovers of chamber music the Recital Hall is the venue of choice. You can hear the musicians breathe and you can practically touch them. This hall is also cherished by musicians for its beautiful acoustics and direct contact with the audience. In the Recital Hall you can hear the best musicians of our time. Buy your tickets now and experience the magic of the Recital Hall for yourself!
Frank Zappa had a special position in the popular music of the 20th century because he was inspired and influenced by composers of the contemporary avant-garde. Colin Towns has arranged some of Zappa’s compositions for the NDR Bigband. Under the direction of chief conductor Geir Lysne, the big band presents a programme of these pieces. Musicians from Ensemble Modern, Zappa’s »last band«, will round off the evening under the direction of Jonathan Stockhammer with works that characterised Zappa: Iannis Xenakis’ »Anaktoria«, Anton Webern’s Symphony op. 21, »Octandre« by Edgard Varèse and Karlheinz Stockhausen’s »Gesang der Jünglinge«.
Adventurous, inquisitive, independent, and principled in his approach – Pascal Dusapin has retained these qualities to this day, which explains why he is one of the most important composers of his generation. For his artfully crafted cycle of seven “orchestral solos,” he pondered for almost two decades the “question of the pure line” – which, according to the composer, is attained only in the sixth solo, entitled Reverso. Uncut concludes the collection of seven solos, and, with its iridescent prisms of color, is inspired by the legacy of Messiaen and Boulez. Conductor Ariane Matiakh will also include the Scenes from Penthesilea on the programme – a dramatic suite with three central roles interpreted by one singer, who in this concert will be the wonderful Christel Loetzsch. Another highlight is Dusapin’s Violin Concerto, characterized by sophisticated timbral changes, and performed by Renaud Capuçon.
NDR has awarded three commissions for compositions: to the US composer and multi-instrumentalist Carla Kihlstedt, to the British trombonist and composer Alex Paxton and to the German composer and music producer Ali N. Askin. All three work across styles between art rock, jazz, contemporary music, improvisation and electronic avant-garde. In this evening’s three world premieres, the NDR Bigband and Ensemble Modern will explore the specific possibilities that arise from their collaboration. Jonathan Stockhammer conducts.
The idea of a joint festival between the NDR Bigband and Ensemble Modern was born during a meeting of seven big band and six Ensemble Modern musicians in autumn 2023. In improvisation phases, they explored similarities and differences. New working structures developed. Five new works and the idea of a cooperative festival crystallised in the improvisations. A programme of music that originated here and will be premiered jointly by musicians from both ensembles will conclude the »NDR Bigband meets Ensemble Modern« festival.
The Concertgebouw’s famous Main Hall is one of the best concert halls in the world, well-known for its exceptional acoustics and special atmosphere. In the Main Hall, you will feel history. Here, Gustav Mahler conducted his own compositions, as did Richard Strauss and Igor Stravinsky. Sergei Rachmaninoff played his own piano concertos in the Main Hall. This is also where musicians such as Leonard Bernstein, Vladimir Horowitz and Yehudi Menuhin gave legendary performances. Right up to now, the Main Hall offers a stage to the world’s best orchestras and musicians. Buy your tickets now and experience the magic of the Main Hall for yourself!
For lovers of chamber music the Recital Hall is the venue of choice. You can hear the musicians breathe and you can practically touch them. This hall is also cherished by musicians for its beautiful acoustics and direct contact with the audience. In the Recital Hall you can hear the best musicians of our time. Buy your tickets now and experience the magic of the Recital Hall for yourself!
It’s about logic, thematic work and the highest artistic demands: the sonata is to the solo instrument what the symphony is to the orchestra and the string quartet to chamber music – the king among genres. »And this is precisely what interests me,« declares star pianist Tamara Stefanovich. »Why do we take this one form for centuries and redress it time and again?« In her concert in the Elbphilharmonie Recital Hall, she contrasts two piano sonatas from the 20th century by Dmitri Shostakovich and Pierre Boulez before she rounds off the evening by improvising together with her jazz ensemble SDLW – an exciting piece of bridge building between form and freedom. Shostakovich’s former piano teacher described his first piano sonata as a »sonata for metronome to the accompaniment of piano«. Experimental, harsh and dissonant, this virtuoso work conveys a feeling of constant movement and, at the same time, grapples with the Russian and western avant-garde. It was a showpiece of the then 20 year old, who repeatedly played it in concert himself. Pierre Boulez’s Second Piano Sonata also fits the »Future« theme of the Hamburg International Music Festival: it is not only extremely demanding, but also includes aleatory elements – composing by chance. Boulez thereby forever departs from the traditional form because, after this work, he was never again to refer back to musical forms of the past in his compositions.
John Cage was a free spirit, a pioneer and revolutionary who turned the way his contemporaries saw music upside down. In humorous happenings and numerous appearances on popular TV shows, he surprised audiences with everyday objects and incorporated squeaky ducks, watering cans and pressure cookers into his works. A completely new approach! His best-known piece »4’33’’« doesn’t have a single note: 4 minutes and 33 seconds of tense silence – that too, according to Cage, is music. At the Hamburg International Music Festival, celebrated pianist Bertrand Chamayou performs legendary Cage pieces with dance accompaniment in »Cage²«. In the late 1930s, the accomplished pianist Cage was experimenting with the expressive possibilities of his instrument, kitting out his piano with screws and erasers that he inserted between the strings. Cage soon after used the resulting percussion-like sound when the dancer Syvilla Fort commissioned him in 1940 to compose incidental music for her choreographies, where rhythm was to play a central role. The unusual combination of primed piano and dance was so successful that more commissions from other dancers followed as a result. For »Cage²«, Bertrand Chamayou is bringing this music back to the stage again. The album of the same name, which was released in May 2024, received universal acclaim. »Impeccable” was the verdict from Gramophone magazine, while the Guardian wrote: » Chamayou’s performance of all of them, each complex rhythm razor sharp, every phrase perfectly articulated, is exemplary. It’s a fabulous disc, a true revelation.« All the more reason to be delighted with the addition of choreography to the phenomenal music on stage.
»Life on our planet developed in water. If the polar ice caps melt and the sea level rises, it will end up in the water again.« Based on this simple yet harrowing prediction about the future of humanity, Alaskan composer and environmental activist John Luther Adams wrote his opulent orchestral piece »Become Ocean«, which won a Pulitzer Prize and a Grammy. Hardly any other work could be better suited to the motto of the Hamburg International Music Festival – »Future«. It will be performed by one of the best orchestras for new music, the Basel Sinfonietta under its chief conductor Titus Engel. It is preceded by one of the most rousing piano concertos of the 21st century, premiered at the 2019 London Proms. The Swiss composer Dieter Ammann once again proves himself to be an accomplished composer who is just as happy incorporating influences from his past in funk and jazz bands as he is elements from early modern music. At the piano: Andreas Haeflinger, whose first performance of the work in Boston in 2019 was hailed as an »elemental event« – both here and at a subsequent performance in Lucerne.
Cinema atmosphere in the Elbphilharmonie Grand Hall: the Philip Glass Ensemble plays its eponymous founder’s soundtrack to the 1982 cult film »Koyaanisqatsi« live. Translated from the American Hopi language, the film title means »life out of balance« – the criticism of the often hectic life of modern man at the time is still relevant today. Famous fans like the producers Francis Ford Coppola (The Godfather) and George Lucas (Star Wars) helped to popularise the visionary film. Its narrative devices were entirely new and ground-breaking back in 1982: devoid of any plot or dialogue, people rush around through the modern, machine-influenced world in fast forward – an apocalyptic vision of the collision of man and nature, technology and the environment. The soundtrack by the minimal music legend Philip Glass enhances the hypnotic effect of the film, resulting in an audio-visual synthesis of the arts. The faster the machines turn and the assembly lines run, the more stressed the people working on them become, the more Glass ramps up the tempo of his repetitive music patterns. Although the composer himself no longer performs, his ensemble carries on the spirit of his music, true to the original.
A concert without a stage or visible musicians: the audience sits dispersed about the room for »Orbit – A War Series«, the sound appears to come from everywhere. The magazine Groove describes its premiere at the Venice Biennale in 2023 as an »impressive synthesis of the arts« – and it revolves around a serious subject. At the centre: immortal warriors in a post-human, techno-futuristic choir. Using electronic music between techno and a celestial expansive sound, composer Brigitta Muntendorf places alienated voices cloned by AI. They tell of structural sexualised violence against women as a weapon of war. Detached from their individual fate and from any physicality due to their alienation, the voices encircle the audience with haunting testimonies of wars and power struggles as conducted against the female body for millennia. »I wanted to create a space where we can approach these themes and ›embrace‹ them, where the violence is not passed on to the audience or reproduced in the concert hall«, the composer says. Here, space is literally meant as »sound space«. The sound comes from loudspeakers, arranged around the audience – sometimes, it seems to circle like a helicopter; then, to come from a specific direction or from everywhere. The latest 3D-sound technology, recently obscured in the Recital Hall of the Elbphilharmonie, enables this.
The Decoder Ensemble always moves with the times – or is a bit ahead of it. As a »Band for New Music«, the six musicians are regular guests at the Elbphilharmonie with a wide variety of projects. »Future Recognition« explores the possibilities of artificial intelligence in music and art as part of the Hamburg International Music Festival, which takes place in 2025 under the theme of the »Future«. All works on this evening experiment with AI and are for the most part premieres by international young composers for whom working with AI is almost second nature. Creative potential or risk to people and their identity? Alexander Schubert is both ensemble member and composer. With his piece »Holo_Acid.MOV (CRYPT-File)«, he raises further key questions: lyrics, sounds and videos in this multimedia work are without exception AI generated. Since its premiere in 2021, production techniques have rapidly improved and streamlined – what does this short half-life mean for artistic creation? Multimedia artist Denis Polec has been commissioned to refine the visual part of this composition using AI.
The Decoder Ensemble always moves with the times – or is a bit ahead of it. As a »Band for New Music«, the six musicians are regular guests at the Elbphilharmonie with a wide variety of projects. »Future Recognition« explores the possibilities of artificial intelligence in music and art as part of the Hamburg International Music Festival, which takes place in 2025 under the theme of the »Future«. All works on this evening experiment with AI and are for the most part premieres by international young composers for whom working with AI is almost second nature. Creative potential or risk to people and their identity? Alexander Schubert is both ensemble member and composer. With his piece »Holo_Acid.MOV (CRYPT-File)«, he raises further key questions: lyrics, sounds and videos in this multimedia work are without exception AI generated. Since its premiere in 2021, production techniques have rapidly improved and streamlined – what does this short half-life mean for artistic creation? Multimedia artist Denis Polec has been commissioned to refine the visual part of this composition using AI.
What would happen if humanity could pass through the gateway to the underworld and restart once again in another realm? Eva Reiter’s experimental opera »The Rise«, written on the basis of poems by the Nobel Prize Winner for Literature Louise Glück and staged by choreographer Michiel Vandeveldes, acts out this vision. Deaf actor Ruben Grandits, whose gestures are converted into intoxicating sounds via sensors on his hands, acts in the spotlight. As master of ceremonies, he directs the other people on the stage with his gestures and sounds. A new language, a new company and a new music emerge in the interaction of instruments specifically built for this purpose, electronically transformed sounds and the movements of the performers. The specially designed instruments visually transform movement into sounds. Music, dance and language merge into image and sound – »The Rise« is, consequently, equally accessible to deaf and hearing people.
What would happen if humanity could pass through the gateway to the underworld and restart once again in another realm? Eva Reiter’s experimental opera »The Rise«, written on the basis of poems by the Nobel Prize Winner for Literature Louise Glück and staged by choreographer Michiel Vandeveldes, acts out this vision. Deaf actor Ruben Grandits, whose gestures are converted into intoxicating sounds via sensors on his hands, acts in the spotlight. As master of ceremonies, he directs the other people on the stage with his gestures and sounds. A new language, a new company and a new music emerge in the interaction of instruments specifically built for this purpose, electronically transformed sounds and the movements of the performers. The specially designed instruments visually transform movement into sounds. Music, dance and language merge into image and sound – »The Rise« is, consequently, equally accessible to deaf and hearing people.
“It may well be that through the systematic use of monophony I have arrived at the purest form of melody,” said Claude Vivier about his 1981 work, which he described as a return to the melodies of his past. Helmut Lachenmann presents a broad spectrum ranging from stifled sounds of indeterminate pitch and different shades of noise all the way to distinct pitches. According to Lachenmann, it represents an “offer of expressive intensity that seeks to overcome the bourgeois longing for beauty.” In Rebecca Saunders’ Piano Concerto, glissandi audaciously hurtle across the keyboard, expanding the sonic space and letting it collapse once again. Saunders worked on these gestures together with pianist Nicolas Hodges, and states: “I like exploiting the instruments’ technical possibilities and discovering the very limits of their timbral palette.”
He is a rising star among conductors: Klaus Mäkelä is just 29 years old, and already chief conductor designate of Amsterdam’s Concertgebouw Orchestra. With Richard Strauss’ Alpine Symphony, he will be able to open a magnificent panorama of sound. The work takes us through a day in the mountains, across flowery meadows, through thunderstorms and storms. Wolfgang Rihm also favours lush sounds in Transitus III. “I love the intricate web of orchestral possibilities,” says our Composer in Residence, who died in 2024, “the creation of states, and of transformations.”
He is a rising star among conductors: Klaus Mäkelä is just 29 years old, and already chief conductor designate of Amsterdam’s Concertgebouw Orchestra. With Richard Strauss’ Alpine Symphony, he will be able to open a magnificent panorama of sound. The work takes us through a day in the mountains, across flowery meadows, through thunderstorms and storms. Wolfgang Rihm also favours lush sounds in Transitus III. “I love the intricate web of orchestral possibilities,” says our Composer in Residence, who died in 2024, “the creation of states, and of transformations.”
Pierre Boulez catapulted himself to the forefront of music pioneers in 1955 with his chamber cantata »Le marteau sans maître« (The Hammer Without a Master). Top young talents such as Ema Nikolovska and Sean Shibe, both Elbphilharmonie FAST LANE artists, juxtapose the Boulez with works by the next generation as part of the Hamburg International Music Festival with the motto »Future«: a brand new piece by drummer and Pulitzer Prize winner Tyshawn Sorey (also featured in the Elbphilharmonie’s »Jazz Drums« focus) and »Bel Canto« by Cassandra Miller, which is dedicated to the opera diva Maria Callas. »Le marteau sans maître« is one of Boulez’s most renowned signature works. He took three surrealist poems by the Frenchman René Char from his eponymous collection as the starting point for this composition for alto voice and six instruments. This is not a traditional setting of text to music though. While the verses are sung, they are also interpreted purely instrumentally – resulting in an almost labyrinthine realm of words and sounds that invite the listener in to search and discover.
He is a rising star among conductors: Klaus Mäkelä is just 29 years old, and already chief conductor designate of Amsterdam’s Concertgebouw Orchestra. With Richard Strauss’ Alpine Symphony, he will be able to open a magnificent panorama of sound. The work takes us through a day in the mountains, across flowery meadows, through thunderstorms and storms. Wolfgang Rihm also favours lush sounds in Transitus III. “I love the intricate web of orchestral possibilities,” says our Composer in Residence, who died in 2024, “the creation of states, and of transformations.”
Karlheinz Stockhausen – and Wolfgang Rihm? Was there something? You bet. In the early summer of 1972, Rihm finished school and had a state examination in composition and music theory in his pocket. Rihm was just twenty and his goal was clear: to study composition. And only Stockhausen in Cologne was an option. He replies politely, invites him, but immediately makes his reservations clear in writing. It had to be »clear that you have no other plans for at least two years. Otherwise you’d better go somewhere else or nowhere at all. Kind regards, K. Stockhausen«.
Rihm and Stockhausen’s first meeting took place in the summer of 1972. Stockhausen, 24 years his senior, had already seen a lot of talented young people, but was quite taken with Wolfgang Rihm and his youthful self-confidence when he applied for his composition class at the age of barely twenty. And so Rihm, who had been taking professional composition lessons for a long time, regularly travelled from his new home in Cologne to Kürten, 25 km away, where the master held his classes. He would later say that this time was a time of self-discovery and self-examination as a composer.
What would films like Star Wars, Jurassic Park, Indiana Jones or Harry Potter be without his extraordinary music? John Williams, superstar of American film music, gave all these blockbusters their unmistakable sound. His soundtracks provide so much more than catchy tunes; they lend depth and nuance to both stories and characters. In 2021, John Williams made his debut with the Berliner Philharmoniker, leading the audience through the cosmos of his work. This season brings a new opportunity to hear him conduct his own music: a major event, not just for film fans.
What would films like Star Wars, Jurassic Park, Indiana Jones or Harry Potter be without his extraordinary music? John Williams, superstar of American film music, gave all these blockbusters their unmistakable sound. His soundtracks provide so much more than catchy tunes; they lend depth and nuance to both stories and characters. In 2021, John Williams made his debut with the Berliner Philharmoniker, leading the audience through the cosmos of his work. This season brings a new opportunity to hear him conduct his own music: a major event, not just for film fans.
The Concertgebouw’s famous Main Hall is one of the best concert halls in the world, well-known for its exceptional acoustics and special atmosphere. In the Main Hall, you will feel history. Here, Gustav Mahler conducted his own compositions, as did Richard Strauss and Igor Stravinsky. Sergei Rachmaninoff played his own piano concertos in the Main Hall. This is also where musicians such as Leonard Bernstein, Vladimir Horowitz and Yehudi Menuhin gave legendary performances. Right up to now, the Main Hall offers a stage to the world’s best orchestras and musicians. Buy your tickets now and experience the magic of the Main Hall for yourself!
What would films like Star Wars, Jurassic Park, Indiana Jones or Harry Potter be without his extraordinary music? John Williams, superstar of American film music, gave all these blockbusters their unmistakable sound. His soundtracks provide so much more than catchy tunes; they lend depth and nuance to both stories and characters. In 2021, John Williams made his debut with the Berliner Philharmoniker, leading the audience through the cosmos of his work. This season brings a new opportunity to hear him conduct his own music: a major event, not just for film fans.
Colourful, festive, refined – Camille Saint-Saëns’ “Organ Symphony” surprises us not only with its unexpected use of the organ, but also with its delicate sound textures. Kazuki Yamada, chief conductor of the orchestras in Birmingham and Monte-Carlo, conducts the work in his debut with the Berliner Philharmoniker; the organ part is played by Sebastian Heindl.The symphany will be preceded by two different kinds of water music: Ottorino Respighi’s gaudy, shimmering tone poem Fontane di Roma and Tōru Takemitsu’s mystical I Hear the Water Dreaming, featuring our solo flautist Emmanuel Pahud.
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