RADICAL CURIOSITY

The 2024-25 concert season at the Pierre Boulez Saal 

On May 22, Artistic Director Ole Bækhøj presented the Pierre Boulez Saal's 2024–25 concert season, which honors the uncompromisingly curious and visionary artist the hall is named for on the occasion of his 100th birthday. Throughout his life, Pierre Boulez (1925–2016) always searched for the radically new. This is reflected in a wide range of events that connect the unknown with the familiar. The season opens on September 6 with a concert traditionally performed by the Boulez Ensemble, led this year by Thomas Guggeis. Other highlights include three concerts with the Orchestra of the Barenboim-Said Akademie conducted by Daniel Barenboim to introduce a new generation of musicians. The rising young pianist Fabian Müller, who took part in a masterclass with Maestro Barenboim during the pandemic, now presents his own concert cycle performed Beethoven's complete piano sonatas. María Dueñas, one of the outstanding artists of her generation, makes her Pierre Boulez Saal debut; other chamber music programs include performances by Clara-Jumi Kang, Isabelle Faust, Leonidas Kavakos, Carolin Widmann, Tabea Zimmermann, Yefim Bronfman, and Emmanuel Pahud. Among the highlights of improvised music are concerts with Dee Dee Bridgewater, esperanza spalding, The Necks, Naseer Shamma, and the duo of Jordi Savall and Waed Bouhassoun. A series of five concerts focuses on Jörg Widmann both as composer and clarinetist, including a trio program with Antoine Tamestit and Sir András Schiff. To close the season, the Pierre Boulez Saal invites audiences to an Open House, with concerts, workshops, and exhibitions dedicated to composer George Benjamin. Tickets for the 2024–25 season are available starting Tuesday, May 28, at 2 pm on the Pierre Boulez Saal website, at the box office, or by phone at +49 30 4799 7411.

In the Boulez 100 series, acclaimed artists present a number of the composer’s major works over the course of the season. Michael Barenboim performs Anthèmes 2 alongside solo works by Gérard Grisey, Samir Odeh-Tamimi, and Kareem Roustom. Pianist Tamara Stefanovich celebrates Pierre Boulez with his Second Piano Sonata, one of the composer’s visionary early works, juxtaposing it with other early–20th century sonata experiments by Alexander Scriabin and Ferruccio Busoni. The US-based JACK Quartet takes on the complex and unfinished score of Boulez’s Livre pour Quatuor. A single movement of the same work will be performed by the West-Eastern Divan Ensemble in a version completed by Philippe Manoury, together with string quintets by Mozart and Schubert. Since its inception, the Boulez Ensemble has dedicated itself to radical curiosity in the spirit of Pierre Boulez. Led by extraordinary conductors, the ensemble presents five concerts featuring works from diverse eras, performed by a flexible group of musicians. Thomas Guggeis conducts Boulez’s Le Marteau sans maître on surrealist poems by René Char, with soprano Donatienne Michel-Dansac as the soloist. The program also includes Ravel's Introduction et Allegro and Luciano Berio's Folk Songs with mezzo-soprano Susan Zarrabi. Matthias Pintscher takes on the groundbreaking sur Incises, framed by Pintscher's own beyond II (bridge over troubled water) and Debussy's Sonata for Flute, Viola, and Harp. Michael Wendeberg, who worked closely with Pierre Boulez as a pianist of the Ensemble intercontemporain, conducts excerpts from Pli selon pli (Portrait de Mallarmé), the composer's most extensive score, in its Pierre Boulez Saal premiere. Zubin Mehta and Mojca Erdmann join the Boulez Ensemble to celebrate another anniversary: on September 13, 150 years to the day after the birth of Arnold Schoenberg, the musicians will present his revolutionary Pierrot Lunaire and the Chamber Symphony.

As part of a three-day residency, George Benjamin, one of the leading musicians of our time, will be seen and heard in different facets of his artistry. He conducts the Boulez Ensemble in Boulez's ...explosante-fixe... alongside his own Three Inventions for Chamber Orchestra. On the following night, he joins Pierre-Laurent Aimard in a piano duo for the world premiere of a new work. Finally, this season's Open House, featuring concerts, workshops, and exhibitions throughout the Pierre Boulez Saal and the Barenboim-Said Akademie, is dedicated to Benjamin’s work.

Twelve concerts over the course of the season celebrate the riches of the lied and song genre. Fleur Barron and Kunal Lahiry trace the echoes of global colonial history in music and poetry in their program of songs by a range of different composers. Thomas Hampson and his long-time piano partner Wolfram Rieger present a program dedicated to Gustav Mahler and his contemporaries. In the Lied & Lyrik series, curator and pianist Julius Drake explores the works of William Shakespeare and Friedrich Hölderlin, together with singers Roderick Williams and Katrīna Paula Felsberga and two high-profile actors. Soprano Christiane Karg and pianist Malcolm Martineau dedicate their recital to the literary and historical figures of Mignon, Ophelia, and Mary Stuart. Songs by Schubert, Wolf, Strauss, and others will be interspersed with readings by actor Helmut Mooshammer. Brigitte Fassbaender presents Brahms's only song cycle Die schöne Magelone in its literary context with readings from Ludwig Tieck’s work; Konstantin Krimmel and Wolfram Rieger perform Brahms’s settings. Other song duos to appear during the season include Siobhan Stagg and Jonathan Ware, Gerrit Illenberger and Gerold Huber, Christian Immler and Andreas Frese, Ema Nikolovska and Sean Shibe, as well as Joseph Middleton in two concerts with Rafael Fingerlos and Sophie Rennert, respectively.

In a series of masterclasses during the pandemic, Daniel Barenboim worked with up-and-coming artists on Beethoven's piano sonatas. Among them was Fabian Müller, now recognized as one of the leading pianists of his generation. In the 2024–25 season, he will perform Beethoven's complete piano sonatas in a concert cycle on eight Sunday afternoons. This past April, violinist Antje Weithaas and pianist Dénes Várjon completed their recording of Beethoven's violin sonatas, which has been widely acclaimed as a new benchmark. In the Pierre Boulez Saal, the duo will perform the ten works in three concerts on successive evenings.

 Musical improvisation is an integral part of many cultures around the world. In the 2024–25 season, numerous artists will delve into this tradition with highly individual approaches. Legendary jazz singer Dee Dee Bridgewater performs international standards. esperanza spalding and her band have teamed up with the New York–based Antonio Brown Dance company for an immersive performance of improvised music and dance. For almost 30 years, The Necks have been moving between avant-garde and minimalism, ambient music and jazz. The trio will be performing at the Pierre Boulez Saal for the first time this fall. Oud virtuoso Naseer Shamma presents a new quartet program together with Spanish guitarist Carlos Piñana, Iranian tar player Ali Ghamsari, and Kurdish percussionist Hussein Zahawy. Together with his Kinan Azmeh CityBand, the Syrian clarinetist and composer returns to present a program merging composition and improvisation. John Surman, the Ramal Ensemble, Ben LaMar Gay, Kamilya Jubran, Bakr Khleifi, and other artists perform further concerts of improvised music.

 A range of events once provides insights into the work of the Barenboim-Said Akademie, which is home to the Pierre Boulez Saal. Throughout the season, students perform in chamber music formations and as a symphony orchestra under the direction of Daniel Barenboim as part of the popular Academy Concerts. The programs are announced at short notice. In the new series of Werkstattkonzerte, students present music for solo instruments and smaller chamber-music ensembles in the intimate setting of the Mozart Auditorium on Friday afternoons. Admission includes a cup of Arabic coffee or tea after the concert. The Akademie Forum offers lectures, readings, and panel discussions with guests from the humanities, literature, politics, and public life to discuss contemporary issues. The Edward W. Said Days on April 4–5 take their theme from the title of Said's memoir, Out of Place: in talks and musical performances, the event will focus on geopolitical and personal aspects of Said's biography and aspects of internal and external displacement.

The Elternzeit Concerts (“Parental Leave” Concerts) offer all parents (and other accompanying adults) the opportunity to experience music with their babies, aged 12 months and younger, in a relaxed atmosphere. On six mornings, renowned artists perform 45-minute programs from their current repertoire.