The 2025–26 Season at the Pierre Boulez Saal

Entering its eighth season, the Pierre Boulez Saal has established itself as an internationally acclaimed space. The chamber music hall’s programming continues to challenge listening habits and invites audiences to engage with new and unfamiliar sounds. Director Ole Bækhøj and Artistic Director Kirsten Dawes carry this vision forward into the 2025–26 season, officially announced on May 21, 2025. With a maximum distance of 14 meters between audience and stage, the hall offers an immersive listening experience like no other. In this intimate setting, the hall hosts celebrated artists including Mitsuko Uchida, Renaud Capuçon, Christian Tetzlaff, Kian Soltani, Leif Ove Andsnes, Jörg Widmann, Elisabeth Leonskaja, Isabelle Faust, and – for the final time in Berlin – the Hagen Quartet. The season’s focal points include the Tallis Scholars celebrating the 500th anniversary of Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina, a festival dedicated to Emilie Mayer by the Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin, and the concert series “The Journey of Instruments”, curated by Naseer Shamma. Exceptional song recitals explore stories of seduction, democracy, and resistance, while artists like Dee Dee Bridgewater and Bill Charlap, Nicole Mitchell, Wadada Leo Smith, Jakob Bro, and Marcus Gilmore create unique encounters with diverse traditions of improvised music. Large-scale symphonic works are presented by ensembles including the Cairo Symphony Orchestra and the Barenboim-Said Akademie Orchestra, led by Nabil Shehata since spring 2025.
Tickets for the 2025–26 season go on sale on May 27 at 2 pm via the Pierre Boulez Saal website, at the box office, or by phone at +49 30 4799 7411.

Soprano Sabine Devieilhe makes her Pierre Boulez Saal debut alongside pianist Mathieu Pordoy with a program centered on portrayals of women in music, featuring songs by Lili Boulanger, Cécile Chaminade, Germaine Tailleferre, and others. Numerous vocalists return to explore new artistic perspectives: soprano Mojca Erdmann, a longtime collaborator of the hall, presents Wolfgang Rihm’s Ophelia Sings alongside Richard Strauss’ settings of the same texts, composed nearly a century earlier. Baritone Andrè Schuen and pianist Daniel Heide offer a late-Romantic journey through dreams and nightmares, while soprano Golda Schultz and pianist Jonathan Ware’s Dark Matter(s) explores the darker sides of human existence through works by Florence Price, Johannes Brahms, and others. Mezzo-soprano Corinna Scheurle and conductor Thomas Guggeis present repertoire from Hungary, Germany, and France, and Alice Coote and Julius Drake juxtapose works by Bach and Wagner with songs by Nina Simone and Joni Mitchell. The renowned Lied duo Christian Gerhaher and Gerold Huber return with a program of Schubert Lieder. Five centuries of Palestrina: with over 100 Mass settings and countless other works, the music of the Renaissance master continues to move listeners of all confessions. In November 2025, the legendary Tallis Scholars and conductor Peter Phillips celebrate Palestrina’s legacy with three concerts, placing his works in dialogue with those of his contemporaries Orlando di Lasso, Tomás Luis de Victoria, and Claudio Monteverdi.

Music composed before 1750 is also a focus for artists such as Kristian Bezuidenhout, who performs Bach’s harpsichord concertos and violin sonatas with Isabelle Faust, Michele Pasotti and his ensemble La fonte musica, and Capella de la Torre, whose program spotlights the life of Anne de Bretagne.

In three concerts this fall, the Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin shines a spotlight on the orchestral legacy of Emilie Mayer, a composer widely acclaimed during her lifetime but long forgotten after her death. Her complete orchestral works – including her Piano Concerto in B-flat major with soloist Alexander Melnikov – will be performed for the first time, in new editions reconstructed from the original manuscripts.

In “The Journey of Instruments”, Iraqi oud virtuoso Naseer Shamma explores the influence of the oud across interconnected musical traditions. Following a solo opening concert, the five-part series features leading soloists Ali Ghamsari (tar), Shujaat Khan (sitar), Carlos Piñana (guitar), and Elizabeth Kenny (lute), joined by the viol consort Phantasm, reflecting the instrument’s impact on intertwined musical styles that speak to the depth of cultural exchange between peoples.

Additional concerts of Arabic and Persian music bring together some of the most compelling voices and instrumentalists from across these traditions in spring 2026. Waed Bouhassoun and members of her ensemble Orpheus XXI revisit songs from their childhoods across diverse regions. Palestinian-American oud player Simon Shaheen returns with a new ensemble and Lebanese singer Ghada Ghanem. Ney virtuoso Moslem Rahal leads an ensemble in a program of Arabic and Persian music, while oud player Bakr Khleifi and kamancheh artist Misagh Joolaee continue their musical partnership with new compositions and improvisations.

The Pierre Boulez Saal once again welcomes some of the most exciting figures in international jazz and improvisation. Highlights include jazz legend Wadada Leo Smith’s final European tour with Jakob Bro, Marcus Gilmore, and Thomas Morgan, and the return of Grammy Award winner Dee Dee Bridgewater in a duo with pianist Bill Charlap. South African cellist Abel Selaocoe presents cross-genre compositions, and Meshell Ndegeocello brings a stylistically fluid ensemble exploring queer and feminist expression. Other concerts trace global soundscapes: from Shabaka with Hand to Earth, to Nicole Mitchell’s visionary sonic explorations, to the introspective music of saxophonist Linda Fredriksson and David Virelles’ Cuban-inspired fusion of tradition and electronics. Self-described surrealist blues poet Aja Monet blends poetry, music, and social commentary.

In an extraordinary concert series around the turn of the year, Sir András Schiff returns to the Pierre Boulez Saal to honor the composers who have shaped his career over five decades. Across six portrait concerts, he performs music by Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert, Schumann, and Mendelssohn, concluding with Bach’s monumental and unfinished Art of Fugue.

Barbara Hannigan and the Belcea Quartet join forces, performing works including Hindemith’s Melancholie song cycle and Schoenberg’s groundbreaking Second String Quartet. Swedish stars Martin Fröst and Roland Pöntinen present a wide-ranging program from Brahms and Poulenc to Anders Hillborg’s vivid music for clarinet. With The Knot, the RIAS Kammerchor Berlin and Ensemble Resonanz under Justin Doyle premiere a new work by Joanna Marsh, reflecting on farewell and remembrance alongside music by Vaughan Williams, Parry, and Elgar. The Albert Hofmann Sound System trio, led by Acid Pauli, explores new sonic terrain between minimalism and experimental improvisation using vibraphone, percussion, and electronics.

The Boulez Ensemble returns with three programs demonstrating its artistic breadth. Matthias Pintscher opens the series with Olga Neuwirth’s trumpet concerto ...miramondo multiplo... and Hans Werner Henze’s Le Miracle de la rose for clarinet and ensemble. Under François-Xavier Roth, the ensemble turns to the sound world of Rebecca Saunders, juxtaposing her works Skin and Skull with Ravel’s masterful Sonata for Violin and Cello. In the final concert, Thomas Guggeis leads a tribute to the Viennese tradition, featuring Berg’s Chamber Concerto with soloists Alina Ibragimova and Cédric Tiberghien, alongside waltzes by Johann Strauss arranged by Schoenberg, Berg, and Webern.