Earcracker: Georg Friedrich Haas / Trio Catch

The event lasts a good hour; the bar is open before and after the concert.

• Admission is free; advance reservations are recommended.

To kick off the new 2026/2027 “Ohrknacker” season in Berlin, Trio Catch will perform “Catch as Catch can” by Georg Friedrich Haas, a piece the Austrian composer wrote specifically for the trio on commission from the Cologne Philharmonic.

Georg Friedrich Haas: *Catch as Catch Can* (2018)

Experimenting with new sounds and forms of expression lies at the heart of Georg Friedrich Haas’s work. For him, microtonality is not a deviation from the norm, but a natural part of the musical spectrum. Haas forays into uncharted territory, even though his music is rooted in tradition. Its delicate character and sensitivity to the subtlest vibrations are a powerful reminder of existential concerns. Right from the start, his clarinet trio transports the listener into microtonal spaces with sixth-tone intervals, quarter-tones, and chromatic clusters—spaces in which the instruments of Trio Catch move with complete ease. The great rhythmic complexity and the extended glissandi also strike a harsh and unsettling note. Added to this are special playing techniques such as circular breathing for the clarinet and sonic distortions—such as muting the piano strings—which round out this thrilling sonic adventure.

A project by Trio Catch and bastille musique. Funded by the Berlin Cross-Genre Funding Program.

Trio Catch:

• Martin Adámek, clarinet
• Eva Boesch, cello
• Sun-Young Nam, piano

Catch! Captivating the audience. Masterfully bringing out the diverse timbres of the clarinet, cello, and piano while continually seeking a shared, distinctive sound—that is what defines Trio Catch’s unique profile. Over the course of its fifteen-year history, the trio has collaborated with numerous composers, including Mark Andre, Georges Aperghis, Beat Furrer, and Helmut Lachenmann, with whom it has also recorded several CDs and radio broadcasts. A busy concert schedule has taken Trio Catch throughout Europe and to Asia. Highlights of recent seasons have included performances at venues such as the Elbphilharmonie in Hamburg, the Cologne Philharmonie, and festivals including the Bludenzer Tage zeitgenössischer Musik and Dialoge Salzburg in Austria; November Music in the Netherlands; Festival Présences and Festival d’automne in Paris; Heidelberger Frühling; Eclat Stuttgart; the Witten Days for New Chamber Music; and Ultraschall Berlin. In 2024, they toured Spain and South Korea for the first time. In 2025, the trio premiered Mikel Urquiza’s Triple Concerto with the WDR Symphony Orchestra at the philharmonic halls in Cologne and Essen and performed it with the Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France at the Festival Présences in Paris.Following the CDs “in between” and “Sanh” on col legno, the album “As if” was released in 2019 on bastille musique; it received, among other honors, the German Record Critics’ Award and the Coups de Coeur from the Académie Charles Cros. The album “Gassenhauer” followed in 2024 on bastille musique. In 2012, the trio won the Hermann and Milena Ebel Prize in Hamburg; in 2014, the Berenberg Culture Prize; and in 2018, the Dwight and Ursula Mamlok Prize. The trio is also active in music education; it held a teaching position at the Hamburg University of Music and Performing Arts and conducted workshops for students in the composition classes. In 2016, the Trio Catch launched its own series of lecture-concerts, “Ohrknacker,” which has been regularly organized by bastille musique in Hamburg and Berlin since 2018.