Cuban Dances – A musical roadtrip with Sarah Willis

After the brilliant success of her “Mozart y Mambo” project, Sarah Willis is returning to Cuba. This time the Berlin Philharmonic hornist sets out together with the “Havana Lyceum Orchestra” on a musical road trip to showcase the traditional Cuban music, bringing viewers and listeners into even more intense and lively contact with its roots and traditions. With them, the musicians bring a very special commissioned work: Sarah Willis has commissioned six young Cuban composers to compose a “Cuban Dance Suite” in six movements – for strings, Cuban percussion and solo horn in a fresh and modern adaption of traditional Cuban dances: Son, Danzón, Guaguanco, Cha-Cha, Bolero and Changüi. Each movements of the dance suite is premiered at the place it originated. The result is a composition in six movements that simultaneously draws a map of Cuba and its history. The “Cuban Dance Suite” not only provides the musical thread to the film, but also the road map for Cuba and its musical heritage.

Barenboim conducts Beethoven No. 4

With the performance of Ludwig van Beethoven’s Symphonies Nos. 4, 5, 6 & 8, the Staatskapelle Berlin – under the direction of its principal conductor Daniel Barenboim – celebrates the outstanding composer and jubilarian in whose sign the year should actually be, before the Beethoven Year 2020 turned into a year in the grips of the pandemic that turned not only the music world upside down. PROGRAM: Ludwig van Beethoven: Symphony No. 4

Barenboim conducts Beethoven No. 5

With the performance of Ludwig van Beethoven’s Symphonies Nos. 4, 5, 6 & 8, the Staatskapelle Berlin – under the direction of its principal conductor Daniel Barenboim – celebrates the outstanding composer and jubilarian in whose sign the year should actually be, before the Beethoven Year 2020 turned into a year in the grips of the pandemic that turned not only the music world upside down. PROGRAM: Ludwig van Beethoven: Symphony No. 5

Sonya Yoncheva & Vittorio Grigolo – Opera in Love

The setting of Shakespeare’s Romeo And Juliet – the most famous of all love stories – is Verona. Here, in the Arena di Verona, Plácido Domingo, Sonya Yoncheva and Vittorio Grigolo put on an evening of the most magnificent arias of love, with pieces from operas by Puccini, Verdi and Gounod. In historical costume, the singers also re-enact scenes from Romeo And Juliet. A concert evening of love, lust and turbulent passions, with some tempestuous weather included in the price of the ticket.

Barenboim conducts Beethoven No. 2

The Staatskapelle Berlin and its chief conductor Daniel Barenboim continue their symphonic Beethoven cycle with this recording of Beethoven’s Second Symphony. The cycle started with an acclaimed performance of the Ninth on Berlin’s Bebelplatz and goes on in the Lindenoper. First performed in Vienna in 1803 with Beethoven conducting, the Second Symphony exhibits a daring departure from the traditional form. In a classical symphony, the third movement was always a minuet; Beethoven replaces it with a Scherzo, a quick-paced musical form in three-quarter time. While working on this symphony, Beethoven was undergoing an enormous personal crisis: the growing deafness.

Cameron Carpenter at Konzerthaus Berlin

The exceptional organist Cameron Carpenter has been a guest in many major venues worldwide. However, he has a particularly close friendship with the Konzerthaus Berlin, not least because in the 2017/18 season he was Artist in Residence with the Berliner Konzerthausorchester am Gendarmenmarkt, where he also performed with his specially built organ. This instrument was the fulfilment of a long-cherished dream. The International Touring Organ (ITO), which was made according to his plans, enables him to perform at almost any place in the world – a matter of course for most instrumentalists, but a revolution for Cameron Carpenter as an organist. Carpenter played with this huge instrument in a corona-empty concert hall. Works by J.S. Bach, François Couperin, G.F. Händel, Krzysztof Penderecki and Cameron Carpenter.

The Odeonsplatz Concert: Gergiev conducts Beethoven

The Odeonsplatz Concert is entertainment of the highest standard, given the world class of the artists and the quality of the programs presented here year by year. This time Valery Gergiev and the Münchner Philharmoniker present an all Beethoven programme including the Coriolan Overture and the monumental Fifth Symphony, which “becomes a profound, heroic triumph, fabulous, stunning” (Süddeutsche Zeitung). PROGRAM L.v. Beethoven: Coriolan Overture; Symphony No. 5

Festive Advent Concert at the Frauenkirche Dresden 2019

The Festive Advent Concert has become a much loved tradition in Dresden and one of German TV’s biggest classical music success stories. With the spirited Alondra de la Parra a phenomenal young conductor stands at the rostrum of the Staatskapelle Dresden. She is joined by sopranos Regula Mühlemann and Julia Muzychenko as well as tenor Julian Prégardien, presenting works and arias from Handel to Haydn, Schubert and Tchaikovsky to Reger. “A programme with quiet, contemplative passages and almost breathtaking emotional highlights, as well as dramaturgically coherent: a true gift” (Sächsische Zeitung).