Berlin in Lights

If New York is the city that never sleeps, Berlin is the city where you can hear music at any time of the day or night: whether in recording studios during the daytime, the opera houses and concert halls in the evenings, or at its many nightclubs. With the Berlin Philharmonic, the city calls one of the world’s most virtuoso and legendary orchestras its own. In May 2020 the Berlin Philharmonic makes a guest apperance at the Philharmonie Luxembourg under its new chief conductor Kirill Petrenko.

And since this orchestra, more than any other, may be described as a community of outstanding soloists, it makes sense to turn the 2019/20 season into a showcase for the numerous ensembles that have formed within the ranks of the Berlin Philharmonic.

Whether early music with Concerto Melante, contemporary sounds with the Scharoun Ensemble, extravagant sounds from the 12 Cellists, festive ones from the orchestra’s own brass ensemble or entertaining crossover from the Vienna-Berlin troupe Philharmonix – the variety is almost endless and the quality invariably outstanding.

And then there is Max Raabe and his Palast Orchester, a kind of counterpoint to the «Berlin Phil». Thus we pay homage to the musical centre of Berlin, and the icing on the cake is a screening of Fritz Lang’s silent film Metropolis as part of the series «Ciné-Concerts», a movie which would be unthinkable without the city.