Berlin Tracks: Kunal Lahiry & Freddie Ballentine

Indian-American pianist Kunal Lahiry and Grammy Award winner Freddie Ballentine, together with Berlin’s voguing community, create a polyphonic space for queerness, remembrance, resistance, and self-assertion.

What once emerged in the ballrooms of New York’s Black and Latinx communities meets here with classical art song, spirituals, the “AIDS Quilt Songbook,” Nina Simone, performance, and personal stories—drawn from history, but also from the performers themselves: they reveal themselves, their bodies, and their experiences. And once again, the audience is invited to make themselves visible: loud, proud, tender, and in their very own form of expression. And to add the finishing touches to this experience right there in the venue, there will once again be makeup stations. Let’s queer up the concert hall!

In the series “Berlin—Music of the City at the Konzerthaus,” musicians and ensembles from Berlin come together to experimentally blend classical Western music from various centuries with styles that all call this city home—from voguing to strings and synthesizers to jazz.

Berlin Tracks aims to inspire, connect communities, and invite audiences to follow the diverse musical paths that together make up the soundtrack of this city.

Cast

• Freddie Ballentine, tenor
• Kunal Lahiry, Concept & Piano
• Voguing performers from Berlin’s ballroom community