Season 2019/20
The West-Eastern Divan Orchestra’s traditional summer concert at Berlin’s Waldbühne had to be postponed this year—instead, the orchestra now performs at the Pierre Boulez Saal on two consecutive nights, conducted by its founder, Daniel Barenboim. The program includes works by Beethoven, Wagner, Schoenberg, and Boulez.
Season 2020/21
Premiered to great acclaim at the Pierre Boulez Saal by Daniel Barenboim, Sarah Aristidou, and the Boulez Ensemble in June 2019, Jörg Widmann’s Labyrinth IV returns for the opening of the season. Widmann also performs the clarinet part in works by Mozart and Alban Berg. The program opens with Schubert’s Quartet Movement.
For his first appearance at the Pierre Boulez Saal, Giora Feidman is joined by his trio partners Enrique Ugarte and Guido Jäger.
Soprano Olga Peretyatko and pianist Elena Bashkirova perform Prokofiev’s settings of texts by Russian poet Anna Akhmatova and Shostakovich’s Seven Romances, composed in 1967 for the unusual combination of soprano voice and piano trio.
On the heels of his duo recital in November, Christian Tetzlaff brings Bach and Bartók face to face in this solo appearance.
Three fascinating musicians and composers are at the center of the fourth annual Arabic Music Days. Once again curated by Iraqi oud virtuoso Naseer Shamma, the program combines music with poetry, visual art, and film from the Arab world, continuing the tradition from previous years. Shamma opens the festival leading an ensemble of acclaimed artists performing his own compositions for string instruments from various musical traditions.
Renaud Capuçon and Kit Armstrong perform Schoenberg’s late Phantasy for Violin and Piano, written in 1949, alongside Charles Ives’s Second Violin Sonata, a vivid musical portrait of the composer’s home country that brims with allusions and quotes from popular and traditional American music. Two of Beethoven’s sonatas bookend the program.
Director Ofira Henig and actor-dramaturg Khalifa Natour have developed a new piece for the Pierre Boulez Saal that blurs the boundaries between theater, music, and poetry as well as between different cultures. The Queen Commanded Him to Forget explores the role of literature as a preserver of memory and as part of a process that eternalizes forgetting. In Arabic with German and English surtitles
The Belcea Quartet and pianist Bertrand Chamayou—who will also be heard in a solo recital in December—pair Webern’s aphoristic Five Movements for String Quartet with Dvořák’s romantic Piano Quintet. The evening opens with Mozart’s “Dissonance” Quartet.
In early 2018, Daniel Barenboim and the Boulez Ensemble premiered Luca Francesconi’s Daedalus—now the Italian composer’s music is at the center of another program.
Michele Pasotti and his ensemble La fonte musica perform vocal and instrumental works from the late 14th century at the Pierre Boulez Saal.
Following its debut last season, the Chiaroscuro Quartet returns with works by Purcell, Mozart, Beethoven, and Mendelssohn.
Robert Schumann once described Liszt’s Études d’exécution transcendante as “Etudes to be performed by, at most, ten or twelve players in the world”—and the same could be said of Debussy’s piano etudes. Kirill Gerstein performs both works for his Pierre Boulez Saal debut.
Michael Wendeberg and Nicolas Hodges perform both parts of Boulez's seminal Structures for two pianos, which were written over a period of ten years and offer fascinating insights into Boulez’s development as a composer. Music by Debussy and Ravel completes the program.
Bernarda Fink—born in Argentina to Slovenian parents—and her longtime piano partner Anthony Spiri present rarely heard works by Slovenian composers of the 19th and 20th centuries, together with songs by Schumann, Brahms, and Dvořák. Violist Nils Mönkemeyer adds a unique color to the dialogue with voice and piano.
“This new work was born from my desire to continue to develop the confrontation of aesthetics, which has always been an important part of my music.” This is how clarinetist Louis Sclavis describes his most recent program, Les Cadences du monde, which has its premiere at the Pierre Boulez Saal. For the evening’s first set, Sclavis presents music from his 2019 album Characters on a Wall, in a trio formation with Benjamin Moussay and Sarah Murcia.
In the follow-up concert to its 2019 Pierre Boulez Saal debut, Trio con Brio Copenhagen once again opens the program with one of today’s most frequently performed Danish composers: Hans Abrahamsen’s Traumlieder (“Dream Songs”), a re-working of his 1984 Six Pieces, are dedicated to the ensemble. The program also includes works by Ravel and Brahms.
Jazz pianist Florian Weber and the Ensemble Modern, which celebrates its 40th anniversary this year, unite for the first time for their joint Pierre Boulez Saal debuts.
Jörg Widmann’s Jagdquartett (“Hunt Quartet”) portrays a wild chase, with bows almost literally flying through the air. Before long, the hunters become the hunted… Taking Widmann’s work as a starting point, the four instruments explore possibilities beyond the scope of a cultured conversation.Performance duration: c. 50 minutesAge 6 and olderWithout words
Jean-Yves Thibaudet performs the entire two-volume cycle of Claude Debussy's Préludes for his solo debut at the Pierre Boulez Saal.
For the first evening of the new Lied und Lyrik concert series, tenor Mark Padmore joins pianist Julius Drake to perform Benjamin Britten’s musical adaptations of works by English poets John Donne and Thomas Hardy.
Seventy-five years after the end of World War II, this symposium offers a comprehensive look at the effects of the Shoah, from 1945 to the present, on the survivors of Nazi persecution, their descendants, and society as a whole.In German
Daniil Trifonov sets out on an extraordinary journey through the piano literature of the 20th century: performing one seminal work from each decade, he reveals its breathtaking stylistic diversity and rapid development.
Joined by his piano partner Mzia Bachtouridze, Ildar Abdrazakov takes on Shostakovich’s 1974 Michelangelo Suite and selected works by Modest Mussorgsky, including the Songs and Dances of Death.
"Europa Galante pairs Mozart’s “Milanese Quartets,” written during his stay in the northern Italian city in the early 1770s, with string quartets by Carlo Monza—a composer hardly remembered today but an eminent musical authority at the time with whom Mozart certainly crossed paths while in Milan."
Together with young violinist Milan Al-Ashhab and led by Nabil Shehata, the Filasteen Young Musicians Orchestra comes to the Pierre Boulez Saal and the Barenboim-Said Akademie for the first time, where many of its former members are students today.
As a member of the Boulez Ensemble, Astrig Siranossian has long been a regular at the Pierre Boulez Saal. Now the young French-Armenian cellist returns in a duo formation with pianist Nathanaël Gouin.
Brothers Samir, Wissam, and Adnan Joubran, born in Nazareth, come from a family of lute makers— their instrument is the oud. As a trio, they have won international acclaim with their highly personal blend of traditional maqams, Spanish-Arabic music, and jazz-inspired improvisation. For their Pierre Boulez Saal debut, they perform music from their most recent program, The Long March.
Following his highly successful Pierre Boulez Saal debut in November 2019, saxophone virtuoso Charles Lloyd returns with two different programs.
Antoine Tamestit and Cédric Tiberghien present works by Britten, Shostakovich, Sciarrino, and Brahms.
"Pianist Bertrand Chamayou pairs Charles Ives's rarely performed Second Piano Sonata with excerpts from Franz Liszt’s “Years of Pilgrimage”—both a musical travel journal and a compositional search for the self."
Rolando Villazón has been leading the Salzburg Mozart Week as artistic director since 2019. Now his festival pays a visit to Berlin and the Pierre Boulez Saal, presenting highlights from a program that celebrates the music of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart every year around January 27, the composer’s birthday.
Hear the students of the Barenboim-Said Akademie perform live at the Pierre Boulez Saal.
Once again this season, the Boulez Ensemble dedicates two “monothematic” concerts to the works of a single composer. Led by François-Xavier Roth, the musicians explore three fascinating scores by György Ligeti.
"Ekaterina Semenchuk and Semion Skigin’s song recital spotlights two antipodes among Russian composers of the 19th century: Mikhail Glinka’s 1840 song cycle A Farewell to St. Petersburg is complemented by Modest Mussorgsky’s somber Songs and Dances of Death, written some three decades later."
The annual appearances of the Ensemble intercontemporain, founded in 1976 by Pierre Boulez, have been among the program highlights of the Pierre Boulez Saal ever since the hall’s opening. Led by its music director Matthias Pintscher, the group once again presents a panorama of new and recent works.
Two seasons ago, the Heath Quartet presented Jörg Widmann’s complete string quartets at the Pierre Boulez Saal. Now the four British musicians return to perform his 2017 Clarinet Quintet—with the composer himself taking on the clarinet part.
Just before the holidays, the Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin and soprano Robert Mameli come to the Pierre Boulez Saal with a colorful collection of Baroque music for Christmas.
With actors reading from their works, Holger Falk and Julius Drake revisit the historical meeting of the poets Friedrich Hölderlin and Justinus Kerner in settings by Schumann, Eisler, Ullmann, and Josef Matthias Hauer.
One of the most influential and versatile performers of classical Persian music, Kayhan Kalhor returns to the Pierre Boulez Saal, performing on the traditional long-necked lute setar in a duo with Iranian-Canadian virtuoso Kiya Tabassian.
"“Parental Leave” concerts are aimed at all new mothers and fathers (as well as uncles, aunts, grandparents…) who would like to experience music together with their babies in a relaxed setting. In seven morning programs, each approximately 45 minutes long, Pierre Boulez Saal artists perform excerpts from their current repertoire."
Saleem Ashkar returns to the Pierre Boulez Saal with a program ranging from Schumann’s Kreisleriana to compositions by Brahms and Schoenberg, to the seminal Douze Notations by 20-year-old Pierre Boulez.
In his opening recital for this year's Schubert Week, Thomas Hampson, joined by his longtime collaborator Wolfram Rieger, contrasts Schubert’s final songs, known as Schwanengesang, with lesser-known works by some of the composers he drew inspiration from—and those who were inspired by him.
Winner of both the First Prize and Grand Prix at the 2019 Tchaikovsky Competition in Moscow, pianist Alexandre Kantorow, born in France in 1997, is widely regarded as one of the up-and-coming artists of the younger generation. For his Pierre Boulez Saal debut recital he has chosen works by Brahms, Bach, Rachmaninoff, and Sofia Gubaidulina.
Hear the students of the Barenboim-Said Akademie perform live at the Pierre Boulez Saal.
Danish guitarist Jakob Bro leads his own quartet in the first part of his Pierre Boulez Saal debut, performing a number of his own compositions. Trumpeter Ambrose Akinmusire and percussionist Marilyn Mazur join for the second set.
Lahav Shani, who has appeared at the Pierre Boulez Saal in previous seasons both as pianist and conductor, leads the Boulez Ensemble in the world premiere of a new piece for cello and ensemble by German composer Isabel Mundry.
Bach’s Violin Sonatas and Partitas have long held a special place in Alina Ibragimova’s repertoire. The Russian-British violinist presents three of these groundbreaking works in an intimate solo recital.
Hear the students of the Barenboim-Said Akademie perform live at the Pierre Boulez Saal.
"Together with the Capricornus Consort Basel, Stefan Temmingh explores connections between the world of Vivaldi's flute concertos and compositions by Johann Sebastian Bach, Markus Zahnhausen, and Fausto Romitelli."
Soloists of the Ensemble intercontemporain present Pierre Boulez's Dialogue de l'ombre double and Anthèmes II together with Benjamin Attahir’s Après l’ineffable for cello and piano and a new composition by Sarah Nemtsov.
A few days after the opening in March 2017, Pierre Boulez’s Dérive 2 was first heard in the concert hall that bears his name. Now Daniel Barenboim and the Boulez Ensemble once again explore this highly complex score, one of the most remarkable in the composer’s oeuvre, in back-to-back programs, which are preceded by a performance in Paris as part of the second Pierre Boulez Biennale.
Together with countertenor Jake Arditti, the Arditti Quartet presents recent works by Hilda Paredes and Salvatore Sciarrino. String quartets by James Dillon and Hans Werner Henze complete the program.
Born in 2007, Alexandra Dovgan made international headlines when she won the Grand Prix of the 2018 Grand Piano Competition for Young Pianists in Moscow. The young pianist now makes her Pierre Boulez Saal debut performing works by Bach, Schumann, Rachmaninoff, and Chopin.
Tenor Bogdan Volkov, who was most recently heard in Berlin in Prokofiev’s Betrothal in a Monastery at the Staatsoper Unter den Linden, makes his Pierre Boulez Saal debut performing Russian songs by Tchaikovsky and Leonid Desyatnikov.
At the 2019 Arabic Music Days, Syrian singer and oud player Waed Bouhassoun impressed Pierre Boulez Saal audiences with intimate settings of Syrian poetry from different centuries. For her next appearance she is joined by ney virtuoso Moslem Rahal.
The West-Eastern Divan Ensemble—founded in 2019 for the 20th anniversary of the West-Eastern Divan Orchestra by its concertmaster Michael Barenboim—unites members of the orchestra in an intimate chamber-music formation.
In his diverse solo program, Emmanuel Pahud combines selected fantasies for flute by Georg Philipp Telemann with equally demanding works by a group of contemporary composers, all written for him over the last few years.
In his most recent formation with Carlitos Del Puerto on bass and Marcus Gilmore on drums, legendary jazz pianist Chick Corea presents new standards, pieces from artists he has long admired, and his own original compositions—many of them classics in their own right.
Inspired by Stravinsky’s idea for The Soldier’s Tale to be “read, played, and danced” by a traveling theater troupe, director Dan Tanson has reimagined the piece in a staging tailormade for the Pierre Boulez Saal’s 360-degree setting. Following its successful premiere in February 2019, the production returns for four more performances. Performance duration: c. 60 minutesAge 6 and olderIn German
In its third annual Edward W. Said Days, the Barenboim-Said Akademie will examine the relationship between culture and power. Through music, lecture, art, and film, students and faculty will embark on an unflinching and critical exploration of, as Said quipped aphoristically, “the power of culture and the culture of power.”
Following its successful debut in the 2018–19 season, the Brass Quintet of Milan’s La Scala once again brings the world of grand opera and music theater to the Pierre Boulez Saal.
The Heath Quartet, heard in three concerts over the course of the season that highlight many different aspects of the ensemble’s artistry, explores a multitude of musical textures in this program.
In the summer of 1917, Leoš Janáček met Kamila Stösslová, a young woman almost 40 years his junior. His passionate love for her remained platonic, but it inspired a number of works written over the following years—most notably the Second String Quartet of 1928, in which Janáček told the story of this relationship, entirely without words.
It seems almost impossible to imagine German lied without Goethe. Spoken and sung, Goethe’s words provide the theme of this third and final Lied und Lyrik program with Christoph Prégardien and Julius Drake.
The mysterious character of Ophelia from Shakespeare’s Hamlet is at the center of the program presented by the Berlin Staatskapelle String Quartet and soprano Sarah Aristidou.
Following an all-Ligeti program in December, the Boulez Ensemble’s second “monothematic” concert this season is focused on the music of Arnold Schoenberg.
On two consecutive days in April, Sir András Schiff performs Johann Sebastian Bach's six French Suites. The English Suites, written a few years earlier, will be heard in June.
The ensemble Les Vents Français brings together five of today’s most accomplished wind virtuosos. Together with pianist Éric Le Sage, the ensemble has premiered Philippe Hersant’s Osterlied and Thierry Escaich’s Mechanic Song, two works that will be heard as part of its Pierre Boulez Saal debut.
Kian Soltani has been a regular guest at the Pierre Boulez Saal since its opening in 2017, performing here in various formations. He now curates an entire program dedicated to his own instrument.
Conducted by the composer, Nathalia Milstein and the Boulez Ensemble present Matthias Pintscher's first piano concerto NUR together with works by Mozart and Schoenberg.
"With their annual concerts, the chamber ensembles of the Vienna Philharmonic bring specific Viennese sound and the highest levels of virtuosity to the Pierre Boulez Saal. This season’s program is centered around works by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart—who made Vienna his home for the last ten years of his life."
"In March 2019, clarinetist David Krakauer and pianist Kathleen Tagg joined forces with video artist Jesse Gilbert at the Pierre Boulez Saal to create a new and expanded version of their project Breath & Hammer. The program now returns for two nights only."
"The biography of Catherine of Aragon (1485–1536) serves as the starting point for a fascinating journey into the world of the Renaissance with the Orlando Consort."
Sergey Malov's debut at the Pierre Boulez Saal offers a rare opportunity to experience Bach's six Suites for Solo Cello in a new light.
Hear the students of the Barenboim-Said Akademie perform live at the Pierre Boulez Saal.
After performing violin sonatas by Béla Bartók and Johannes Brahms, Michael Barenboim switches to the viola for the second half of his duo recital with Nathalia Milstein, exploring the different characters and colors of these two members of the string instrument family side by side.
Following their moving performance of George Crumb’s Ancient Voices of Children at the Pierre Boulez Saal in March 2020, Zubin Mehta, Mojca Erdmann, and the Boulez Ensemble reunite to once again present this fascinating score.
Alina Ibragimova is joined by her duo partner Cédric Tiberghien in a program that pairs violin sonatas by César Franck and Claude Debussy with music by Igor Stravinsky and Karol Szymanowski
Andrew Norman’s Suspend is inspired by the life and works of Johannes Brahms. Brahms's late Piano Pieces Op. 118 open Emanuel Ax’s recital program which also includes selected works by Frédéric Chopin.
Radek Baborák and Denis Kozhukhin open their concert, for which they are joined by violinist Dalibor Karvay, with Schumann’s romantic Fantasy Pieces. The remainder of the program focuses on horn music of the 20th century.
With performances of more than a thousand newly commissioned works, groundbreaking collaborations with artists from many other disciplines, and a strong commitment to nurturing new generations of musicians, the Kronos Quartet has redefined the role of the string quartet for the late 20th and 21st centuries. The live documentary A Thousand Thoughts employs sound, images, and words to immerse viewers and listeners in this musical cosmos.
Few contemporary performers on the kamancheh, the Persian “spiked fiddle,” have been more influential than Kayhan Kalhor, an acclaimed virtuoso on his instrument for several decades. He is joined by Behnam Samani, one of the undisputed masters of traditional Persian percussion instruments, including the goblet drum tombak.
One of the world’s most celebrated violinists, Gidon Kremer has enjoyed a close artistic partnership with Lithuanian cellist Giedrė Dirvanauskaitė for many years. At the Pierre Boulez Saal, they are joined by rising pianist Alexandre Kantorow.
Two musicians from different generations meet at the Pierre Boulez Saal, challenge each other, and leave their musical comfort zones.
Hear the students of the Barenboim-Said Akademie perform live at the Pierre Boulez Saal.
"As a composer and improviser,” says Uri Caine, “I enjoy the push and pull between structured composed music and free improvisation.” Both aspects of Caine’s artistry will be on display in his first Pierre Boulez Saal appearance.
For his first solo recital at the Pierre Boulez Saal, English tenor Ian Bostridge is joined by Sir Antonio Pappano to perform Schubert’s “spine-chilling songs”—as the composer himself once described his Winterreise.
Hear the students of the Barenboim-Said Akademie perform live at the Pierre Boulez Saal.
"“Parental Leave” concerts are aimed at all new mothers and fathers (as well as uncles, aunts, grandparents…) who would like to experience music together with their babies in a relaxed setting. In seven morning programs, each approximately 45 minutes long, Pierre Boulez Saal artists perform excerpts from their current repertoire."
In December 2019, Maurizio Pollini made his celebrated Pierre Boulez Saal debut with works by Beethoven, Brahms, and Schoenberg. Now the legendary Italian pianist returns to perform another solo recital.
"Following his two performances of the French Suites in April, Sir András Schiff now completes his multiyear cycle with the English Suites, the earliest of Bach’s major collections for keyboard instruments."
Toward the end of the season, the Boulez Ensemble once more explores a range of repertoire, from the 17th century to the present.
After celebrating its 20th birthday with special anniversary concerts in 2019, the West-Eastern Divan Orchestra returns to Berlin next August: for its annual concert at the Waldbühne, conducted by Daniel Barenboim, the orchestra performs Brahms’s Double Concerto for Violin and Cello with soloists Michael Barenboim and Kian Soltani and Richard Strauss’s epic tone poem Ein Heldenleben.
Acclaimed around the world for their standard-setting performances of Josquin’s works, the Tallis Scholars and their music director Peter Phillips now bring an extraordinary project to the Pierre Boulez Saal to commemorate the 500th anniversary of the composer’s death and to close the season: Over the course of four days, they will perform Josquin’s complete masses in what will be the ensemble’s first-ever cyclical presentation of these works.