Classical concerts featuring

Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin

Hahn & Montero

Gabriela Montero is a real phenomenon. You simply need to call out a melody to the Venezuelan, and she cuts loose. Her improvisational art is enthralling—hardly anyone in the world of classical music is able to improvise like this anymore. She transforms Beethoven’s Fifth into a tango, and a simple children’s song into a rapture full of Latino rhythms and jazz that lasts minutes. Familiar, and yet it feels so new. It makes you happy, and you want to hear more—with her ›Latin Concerto‹ from 2016, you’ll be richly rewarded.

Casual Concert with Elim Chan

A trio with an amazing energy: Bryce Dessner provides a spectacular concerto; the exceptional Alice Sara Ott plays the piano; and Elim Chan presents it as host and conductor. To be heard live in this combination only at the Casual Concert in March. And in the Lounge afterwards, the foyer itself will become the dance floor – with a live act, DJ and even more good music.

Chan & Ott

When she grew up, Alice Sara Ott wanted to be a »pianist or Chancellor Kohl«. She was just five at the time. We now of course know what came of it: she became one of the acclaimed pianists of our time. At one time a hyped young artist, she has become a stunning interpreter, and she’s now performing the new piano concerto by an American multi-talent: Bryce Dessner composes masterfully for stage, concert hall, and numerous film scores as well; at the same time, he’s the guitarist of the indie rock band The National. What an exciting duo.

Măcelaru & Faust

For Isabelle Faust only the art matters, not the trappings. She plays with aplomb, focus, deep feeling—that’s how the violinist enthrals the audience, particularly with Shostakovich’s Second Violin Concerto, which, seriously ill in 1967, he »squeezed out note by note, with difficulty«. Sharply reduced, introverted music that concentrates completely on the violin. Music that inquires into where we are going and why.

Ollikainen & Stoyanova

»The omnipotent corruptor of taste in Italy.« »Immaturity, tastelessness, and ugliness.« Quite some impudence, what Verdi heard from Wagner conductor Hans von Bülow in 1874. Another critic found: »After all, isn’t the Italian entitled to ask whether he is allowed to speak Italian with God?« And for Verdi, this is how speaking with God about death in Italian goes: happy for some theatrics, but the Mass should by no means sound »like an opera«. Whether he succeeded—everyone will have to judge for themselves.

Emelyanychev & Müller

In 1851, the philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer sounds off in his essay »on women« that they do not really and truly have sense and sensitivity, »neither for music, nor poetry, nor fine arts«. In such surroundings, Emilie Mayer must have seemed like a provocation: the young woman from small-town Mecklenburg led a glorious life as a composer in Berlin, performed one symphony after the other, became the deputy head of the Berlin Opera Academy and an honorary member of the Philharmonic Society in Munich. It’s high time to rediscover her and her music!

Joshua Bell

He has played for three American presidents, the Supreme Court of the United States and has performed at the World Economic Forum—though thus far, at least, superstar Joshua Bell has not been invited to conduct the renowned political gathering. In Berlin, he’ll work as »playing conductor« with the 100-member DSO for the first time. Just one practical problem: what will he do with the Stradivarius violin, which is worth millions? »When I’m conducting, I keep the violin in one hand and conduct with my bow,« he laughs.

›Into the Countryside‹

Listen, join in, have fun, discover music – the radio3 Children’s Concerts of the DSO are the perfect introduction to the wonderful world of classical music. In six concerts per season, children of primary school age can get to know the orchestra’s enchanting sound machine in all its facets. Together with the DSO, moderator Christian Schruff takes the six to twelve-year-old concertgoers on entertaining and interactive voyages of discovery, tells exciting stories, and presents great music. Already before the concert, at the Open House in the foyer, the young music fans can get to know various instruments together with members of the orchestra, have their faces painted, do crafts, sing, and much more.

Bancroft & Goosby

Dmitri Shostakovich’s Sixth Symphony from 1939 poses an exciting riddle, not least because the beginning and end are missing in this curious work. Instead, it begins with a long slow movement that revolves around its own axis like a giant, lonely planet in space. Followed by two very fast movements. This is how the composer himself imagined »spring, joy, youth«. It will most definitely be a splendid musical experience!

Casual Concert with Manfred Honeck

A composer buffeted about by a dictatorship, writing music with subtexts – dancing on the edge of a volcano. Nothing is unambiguous in Shostakovich’s Fifth. Manfred Honeck presents the legendary work at a Casual Concert as conductor and moderator: equally exciting for newbies and nerds. And then the perfect contrast in the Lounge afterwards – with a live act and a DJ.

Honeck & Rana

Who’s the bigger star here: the composer or the interpreter? The Italian pianist Beatrice Rana has often entered into the competition with Tchaikovsky’s First Piano Concerto. Though his mentor Nikolai Rubinstein considered it »bad, trivial, vulgar«, for almost 150 years now, it is one of the most widely performed hits whatsoever. No wonder when you consider its ingredients: gripping virtuosity, catchy tunes, and melodies that are worked up into a never-ending rapture.

Tarmo Peltokoski

16 hours of operatic drama condensed to 75 minutes: Lorin Maazel’s ›The Ring Without Words‹ is a sort of »Wagner to go« with all the orchestra hits and leitmotifs. For newbies and dyed-in-the-wool Wagnerians. At the Bayreuth premiere of the entire »Ring« in 1876, a magic lantern was even deployed. In Kaija Saariaho’s orchestral piece of the same name as well, everything revolves around light and music. The composer incorporated sensuous sounds and iridescent colours into the work.

Raphel & Caine

Racism is not an opinion, racism is a crime! ›The Passion of Octavius Catto‹ by Uri Caine recounts the story of the civil rights activist murdered in 1871 in a masterpiece that ranges from gospel and jazz to classical and avantgarde. A concert with a powerful message. The DSO speaks out against the far-right!

Jacquot & Midori

We admire stars because they are talented, beautiful, strong, awe-inspiring. We love them when they show their weaknesses. As Midori did. She was a child prodigy before whom Leonard Bernstein fell to his knees in awe. After a stunning career, she gave an account of her mother, who was consumed by ambition, in her 2004 German autobiography ›Einfach Midori’‹ as well as on her teachers and her addictions. She keeps returning after retiring from the stage, this time with Dvořák‘s only violin concerto. She will show that she’s still on fire.

Meister & Müller

»No original feeling … nothing but technical skill, calculation and inner deceit, a sickly, ill-tasting Supermusic«, an outraged critic wrote of the premiere of Mahler’s Fourth in Munich in 1901. Today we speak of a masterpiece. One can love or hate Mahler’s symphonies: some suffer vicariously with them, understanding their loneliness and loving their melancholy. Others find them outré, self-indulgent, hysterical. In the Fourth, it’s all not so bad. »We revel in heavenly pleasures«, it says at the end.

Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin | Cornelius Meister

In 1903, Gustav Mahler and Arnold Schönberg first met in Vienna, starting a collegial friendship. The program of the Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin features these pioneers of modernism alongside Unsuk Chin's concert suite from her opera "Alice in Wonderland." Schönberg's groundbreaking Chamber Symphony No. 1 (1935 orchestral version) and Mahler's lighthearted Symphony No. 4, with its final song based on the Bavarian children's song "Der Himmel hängt voll Geigen," are performed. Chin's "Alice" suite, "Puzzles and Games," a surreal music theatre scene for voice and orchestra, which premiered successfully at the 2017 ACHT BRÜCKEN festival, is also featured.

›Debüt im Deutschlandfunk Kultur‹

A puppet is brought to life, but is then plagued by bothersome human feelings like love, jealousy and anger … and dies again. That’s the story of Petrushka from Stravinsky’s ballet of the same name from 1911. A Russian cousin of Pinocchio? Well yes, but without the happy ending of a Disney film, not spun out of sugar, like candy floss, which didn’t yet exist in St. Petersburg in the 1830s, where the tragic story takes place. But instead, delightful fun fair music, Russian folk songs and dances. All in the scope of the ›Debut‹ series, where you can experience tomorrow’s stars today with the DSO.

Meister in Bad Kissingen

›Symphonic Mob‹ in Bad Kissingen