Building a close relationship with the audience is extremely important to Sebastian Nordmann, the director of the Berlin Konzerthaus. And on every imaginable channel. During the day, various digital gimmicks can be tried out in the vestibule of the classical Musentempel on Gendarmenmarkt, including flying through the hall with virtual reality glasses. And the concert hall is even regularly active on the video game portal Twitch.
But Nordmann also wants to try new things at live concerts. In November, for example, with a festival that bears the ambiguous name “Aus den Fugen”. The polyphonic compositions, which are particularly popular in the Baroque era, will be there, albeit in an unusual form, namely when the harpsichordist Jean Rondeau and the percussionist Tancrède Kummer improvise on Bach’s “Goldberg Variations”.
Fazil Say will conceive a piano recital on socio-political themes, a dark concert will focus on a work by Georg Friedrich Haas for six grand pianos, and the techno marching band “die Meute” has also been invited.
Soprano Fatma Said, who will be Artist in Residence at Gendarmenmarkt next season, also thinks without borders. The palette of her forms of expression ranges from jazz to tango to romantic art songs, she performs with an a cappella male quintet and undertakes a sound journey around the Mediterranean with the Konzerthausorchester to her homeland Egypt.
Principal conductor Christoph Eschenbach will continue to be responsible for the large chunks of symphony in his last season. He will take on Mahler’s 2nd and 5th symphonies, as well as Brahms’ piano quintet in the “brilliant” orchestration by Arnold Schönberg. At the music festival he will conduct a homage to the composer Aribert Reimann, and at his farewell concert he will combine Mozart’s Requiem with Schubert’s “Unfinished”. Honorary Conductor Ivan Fischer returns for four programmes, among the guests at the podium of the Konzerthausorchester are the conductors Elim Cham, Stephanie Childress, Lucie Leguay and Alondra de la Parra.
