Claron McFadden: NINA

Claron McFadden: NINA

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!

Claron McFadden & Claire Chevallier: American-French Connection

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!

Spotlight on Claron McFadden: Workshop Zwerm

NINA

Eunice Kathleen Waymon—better known as Nina Simone—was a singer, pianist, composer, and Black civil rights activist whose work had a lasting impact beyond the world of 20th­century music. Soprano Claron McFadden, first heard at the Pierre Boulez Saal last season, presents a tribute to this extraordinary artist, who died in 2003, tracing her life story in an interdisciplinary performance of words and music. Coproduction with F&A/E Production & Muziektheater Transparant

Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra / Nina Stemme / Ryan Bancroft

The British Telegraph described Nina Stemme as undoubtedly »the greatest dramatic soprano of our time«, while German daily Die Welt recently paid tribute to her voice as »a soprano with a dark chestnut shimmer whose soft power is a true event«.The Swedish soprano can now be heard in Gustav Mahler’s highly emotional »Kindertotenlieder« at the Elbphilharmonie, accompanied by the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra under the baton of its new chief conductor, young high-flyer Ryan Bancroft. The poet Friedrich Rückert dealt with the death of two of his children in over 400 poems, five of which Mahler set to music. And they have it all: in highly expressive, almost operatic style, Mahler uses all the timbres of the orchestra to illustrate the texts. Tragic, dark and beautiful at the same time – as if made for Nina Stemme. Ryan Bancroft is one of the most exciting young conductors of our time: orchestras and audiences alike are thrilled by his presence: »Even the little finger of his right hand is expressive,« the Times wrote about him. For the first time, he is a guest on the Elbe with »his« Stockholm orchestra, and dedicates the second half of the concert to Tchaikovsky’s Fifth Symphony, which deals in powerful music with the unpredictability of fate.

Nina Stemme | Königliches Philharmonisches Orchester Stockholm | Ryan Bancroft

World-renowned mezzo-soprano Nina Stemme joins the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra, now led by Ryan Bancroft, to perform Mahler's poignant "Kindertotenlieder." Preceding this, the orchestra presents a contemporary homage to Liguria by Swedish composer Andrea Tarrodi. The concert concludes with Tchaikovsky's intensely passionate Symphony No. 5.

Diana Damrau & Nikolai Schukoff / NDR Radiophilharmonie / Dirk Kaftan

»Art is not just beauty, art should move people as well,« says Diana Damrau. There can be no doubt that she does this to excellent effect: for years now, the celebrated soprano has been filling opera houses and concert halls all over the world with her radiant voice and a peerless intensity of expression. Yet the appealing Bavarian singer has no airs and graces, nor does she think in terms of musical pigeonholes. Good-humoured and completely authentic, she sings opera and sacred repertoire with the same verve as musicals and film songs. Discount for all under 30: Exclusively for this concert, anyone under 30 can book the REDticket. This means that even the best available seats only cost € 12. Proof of age must be shown when attending the concert, otherwise the difference to the original price will have to be paid. Diana Damrau and her colleague Nikolai Schukoff devote their Elbphilharmonie concert to the great operetta composers, from the »waltz king« Johann Strauss and Berlin native Paul Lincke to Emmerich Kálmán and Franz Lehár. An evening of lovely waltzes and other tunes that should move the audience’s hearts – and their feet as well.

Wagner: Die Walküre

Richard Wagner’s opera »Die Walküre« is a passionate exploration of big themes such as love and betrayal, loyalty and rebellion. The god Wotan wanted to rule through contracts rather than violence but, as a result of broken promises, becomes increasingly entangled in problems until blood begins to flow. Finding no solutions, Wotan finally cries: »One thing alone do I want: the end!« But his daughter Brünnhilde thwarts his plans… At the Hamburg International Music Festival, there is an opportunity to experience the opera in historical original sound for the first time under conductor Kent Nagano. At the festival, Kent Nagano is not conducting »his« orchestra, the Hamburg State Opera, but rather the Dresdner Festspielorchester, Concerto Köln and a top-class cast of soloists, who explore the playing and singing techniques of the 19th century. »More intimate tone colours, a more multi-layered and transparent sound, freed from the ballast of the centuries,« say the performers about the project, which seems to have been tailor-made for the transparent acoustics of the Elbphilharmonie Grand Hall. One of Wagner’s most famous pieces, the »Ride of the Valkyries« – famously used by director Francis Ford Coppola as background music to a helicopter attack in the anti-war film »Apocalypse Now« – thus sounds altogether different.

NDR Elbphilharmonie Orchestra / Alan Gilbert

It only lasts seven minutes, but it is nonetheless monumental: Arnold Schoenberg’s melodrama »Ein Überlebender aus Warschau« (A Survivor from Warsaw). Schoenberg had readopted the Jewish faith, and he wrote the piece, which opens with a fierce trumpet signal, in 1947 to commemorate the uprising in the Warsaw Ghetto. The score mixes the narrative of a man hiding in the sewers with German commands, martial rhythms – and finally the hopeful Hebrew words »Schma Yisrael«, which the Jews use to prepare for death. The part of the narrator is taken by Dominique Horwitz, himself the son of Jewish parents. The French-German actor and chansonnier is in great demand for performances of literary works of music, from Tom Waits’s »Black Rider« to Stravinsky’s »Histoire du soldat«. And the soloists in the second part of the programme likewise have resounding names: among them are the American soprano Susanna Phillips, alto Gerhild Romberger and baritone Michael Nagy. »War and Peace« is the motto of the Hamburg International Music Festival, and chief conductor Alan Gilbert and his NDR Elbphilharmonie Orchestra place the emphasis on a work of hope and brotherly love: Beethoven’s world-famous Ninth Symphony. The overwhelming finale culminates in Friedrich Schiller’s lines »All men shall be brothers«, which win the day against all the powers of destruction. Beethoven not only touched a nerve in his own time by ending the symphony with a large-scale chorus of rejoicing: nowadays, everyone is familiar with the melody in the guise of the European anthem. Even the playing time of a compact disc, when the CD format was introduced, was geared to enable Beethoven’s oversized Ninth to be played without a break.