Fancy some classical music?!

CLASSICAL MUSIC AT THE CASTLE

A summery musical evening with conductor Krzysztof Urbanski and soloist Kian Soltani at the Plassenburg in Kulmbach.

Family concert “Classical music rocks”

Indian Classical Music: Soumik Datta

Soumik Datta is a British composer and sarod maestro (the sarod is a 19-stringed fretless lute, as opposed to the more traditional sitar.) Soumik Datta is more than a sarod virtuoso though. A polymath composer, producer, bandleader, TV presenter and Artistic Director of the Soumik Datta Arts charity, his work embraces traditional and contemporary art forms to address the urgent issues of our times. Soumik is best known for his creative collaborations with Beyonce, Jay-Z, Bill Bailey, Nitin Sawhney, Anoushka Shankar, Arijit Singh, Akram Khan, Javed Akhtar, London Philharmonic Orchestra and City of London Sinfonia amongst others. As a fervent champion of the preservation of Indian arts, Datta strives to bring this ancient Indian stringed instrument to new audiences on a global scale. While contributing to the preservation and ongoing development of musical heritage, Soumik believes that music can serve as a cultural anchor, deepening a sense of community, identity and heritage, while simultaneously reaching out in powerful ways to people of different backgrounds.What is the cost of forgetting? What is created when we misremember? Mone Rekho (or ‘Remember’ in Bengali) is an immersive concert that explores how the beauty and complexity of Indian music shifts and changes through the prism of memory. Born from Soumik’s conversations with elderly people in care homes, facilitated by University College of London and the Alzheimer’s Society, Mone Rekho weaves Indian music with electronic hybrids, visual collages, cinematic scenes, personal anecdotes and bursts of comedy. Accompanied by Gurdain Singh Rayatt on tabla and Camilo Tirado on live effects, Soumik moves between the roles of student, storyteller and master musician in a space that shifts from concert hall to classroom; from care homes to the streets of Kolkata. Everyone is left with something to think about - from remembering lost memories to learning something new. Intimate yet expansive, ‘Mone Rekho’ stretches your imagination.

School concert “Classical music rocks”

In this series, the Berliner Philharmoniker and guests spark enthusiasm for classical music and take a closer look at the art of composing. In moderated concerts, they present the timbres of the instruments. In the school concert “Klassik rockt” with members of the Berliner Philharmoniker, the music and comedy duo Carrington-Brown and the children’s songwriter Suli Puschban, young and old can also sing along – across all musical styles.

Ultraschall – Festival for new Music

Vladimir Jurowski sees himself as a politically aware artist who intervenes and takes a stand on current events. The RSB’s concert at Ultraschall Berlin is therefore particularly characterised by current affairs.Olga Rayeva: On the seaMany of her compositions deal with the theme of the sea. This is no coincidence: her early childhood is deeply connected with two cities: Moscow, where there is no sea, and Mariupol, where her mother’s parents lived at the time. She was always very happy in Mariupol and dreamed her whole life of being back there one day, near the somewhat murky, green Sea of Azov. She would then walk along an alleyway in this southern city to the small theatre…Now neither the theatre nor the town itself exists.This is a personal tragedy for Olga. The events of the last few years have destroyed her to a large extent internally. And the only way for a composer to deal with trauma is to write music.Elnaz Seyedi: a mark of our breathElnaz Seyedi’s compositions are influenced by literature, architecture and the visual arts as well as her studies in computer science. The sounds often oscillate between rigour and delicacy. Her work “a mark of our breath” was premiered as part of the concert series ‘Miniatures of Time’ – a series of twelve short orchestral pieces commissioned by Westdeutscher Rundfunk from various composers. They all deal with issues of our time, such as sustainability or the coronavirus crisis. Elnaz Seyedi himself writes about a mark of our breath:“The composition was created in 2021 during a stay in Wendland. Inspired by the expansive view with three quarters of the sky, which is different in every weather and every time of day, but actually always spectacular, and a landscape with a rich spectrum of green and later in autumn of yellow. The piece begins in this peaceful landscape, which gradually breaks up from within. The human voices – played and sung simultaneously in the brass instruments – are on the one hand part of this landscape, enriching it with their very special colour. On the other hand, their flipside is the destruction of the seemingly original.”Farzia Fallah “Traces of a Burning Mass” for orchestraLike Seyedi, Farzia Fallah was also born in Iran. Her orchestral work, for which she received the Heidelberg Women Artists’ Prize, was written during the protests against the violent death of Mahsa Amini in police custody in autumn 2022: musical traces of a burning, angry, freedom-loving mass. The concert can be heard on the radio on the following dates:Deutschlandfunk Kultur: 18 January 2024, 8:03 pm rbbKultur: 12 March 2024, 11:03 pm About the festival:The “Ultraschall – Festival for New Music” presents recently created works in a music-historical context that goes back to the beginnings of the post-war avant-garde, a period that now spans more than 70 years.In recent years, more and more premieres and first performances have been presented at the festival, and some of the works are also commissioned by the festival, but the approach remains the same: to give space to current trends in contemporary music and at the same time to categorise these current productions in terms of music history.

Ultraschall – Festival for New Music

Guest performance ‟Comedy meets Classical Musicˮ

Various ComposersMusical Journey with ‟The Three Bigˮ: Bach ‒ Beatles ‒ Bond

Guru Nanak and Indian Classical Music

Kirpal Panesar takes us on a musical journey that is both meditative and profound, exploring Guru Nanak's connection between spiritual verses and music.

Guest performance Masterpieces of Popular Classical and Romantic Music

Das lebendige Konzert – BIPoC in Classical Music

‘Talent is evenly distributed, opportunity is not’ is the core message of the British initiative “Black Lives in Music”, which fights tirelessly for equal opportunities for Black and ethnically diverse musicians (Black People, Indigenous People and People of Colour) in the professional classical and jazz scene. Who is on stage, whose pieces are played? Even in the 21st century, the classical music business is characterised by traditional, Eurocentric mechanisms that repeat outdated structures. What do we need to know, what can we do to break this cycle? Together with Black Lives in Music, Konzerthaus Berlin invites concert organisers to set the course for concrete changes in their own institutions based on a historical understanding - on the way to more justice. Speakers include: Chi-chi Nwanoku (Chineke! Orchestra), Leyla Ercan (freelance diversity and cultural consultant), Dr Dr Daniele G. Daude (musicologist), Elise Brown (Revere Arts agency), Prof Andrea Tober (Hanns Eisler School of Music Berlin), Dorothee Kalbhenn (Konzerthaus Berlin). Moderated by Roger Wilson (Black Lives in Music) Duration: approx. 4.5 hours, limited number of participants.In English and German. If you are interested, please contact intendanz@konzerthaus.de In co-operation with Black Lives in Music