Atlas Ensemble plays new music by Joel Bons

New Year's Concert 2025 - Netherlands Wind Ensemble

New Year's Concert 2025 - Netherlands Wind Ensemble

Icelandic music by Bjarnason, Sigurðsson and Salonen

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!

Ensemble!

New Year's Concert 2025 (dress rehearsal) - Netherlands Wind Ensemble

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!

Decoder Ensemble

The Decoder Ensemble is one of the most bold and original representatives of the international New Music scene. With its high-energy sound, the ensemble thrills audiences in prestigious concert halls as well as in clubs such as Berlin’s Berghain. For several years, Decoder hosted the Elbphilharmonie’s »Below Deck« series, in which they presented fascinating performance evenings with a range of very different guest artists.

Decoder Ensemble

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.

Philharmonic chamber music String quartets and quintets by Korngold, Rihm and Bruckner

The String Quintet in F major is the only major chamber music work by Anton Bruckner, whose 200th birthday will be celebrated in 2024. The Philharmonic String Quartet and Amihai Grosz, principal violist of the Berliner Philharmoniker, present the piece in this concert. The evening will open with Erich Wolfgang Korngold’s Second String Quartet, which has a distinctive Viennese lilt. A constant in this season’s Philharmonic Chamber Music concerts is the music of our composer in residence Wolfgang Rihm. Here you can hear his dark, finely-spun Grave, written in memory of violist Thomas Kakuska.

Philharmonic chamber music Piano quartets by Mozart and Beethoven with Kit Armstrong

“It is the best thing I have written in my life”, declared Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart in 1784 of his piano quintet. Many of his most famous works had not yet been written, but the quintet remains a Mozartian jewel, with its melodic beauty and charming dialogues between the instruments. It is no wonder that the young Ludwig van Beethoven was inspired by Mozart’s example to write an equally enchanting quintet. Members of the Berliner Philharmoniker play both works with pianist Kit Armstrong. Contemporary counterpoints are provided in the form of wind quintets by Hans Werner Henze and Wolfgang Rihm.

Buganda Music Ensemble

Court music comes to the Elbphilharmonie. The Buganda Music Ensemble comes from the Kingdom of Buganda, which was founded in the 14th century. The territory of the pre-colonial state lies in eastern Africa, in what is now the modern state of Uganda. The ensemble is led by Albert Bisaso Ssempeke, a renowned virtuoso on the ennanga arched harp and the endongo bowl lyre. Another of the formation’s key instruments is the amadinda, a bulky xylophone-like instrument that is played by three musicians at the same time and that boasts an incredible power. European art music composers such as John Cage and György Ligeti have also been inspired by the polyrhythm and microtonality of Bugandan music. How exactly the ancient composers of Buganda developed their compositions is still a mystery, but it is known that they composed on the ennanga arched harp. Various drums also belong to the Buganda Music Ensemble, whose complex melodic and rhythmic patterns produce fascinating effects and tonal illusions that gradually intensify into a mesmerising ritualistic sound. As is often the case in traditional African music, this is also a magical dialogue with the spirits of the ancestors.