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Musikfest Berlin 2023

In Unsuk Chin’s Concerto for cello and orchestra, “a competitive tension between soloist and orchestra occupies centre stage”, as the composer puts it. Staatskapelle Berlin and the American cellist Alisa Weilerstein will take on this work at Musikfest Berlin.


With them on the podium will be Venezuelan conductor Rafael Payare, who after the interval will present the Berlin audience with a symphonic heavyweight that is equally late Romantic and modern: Gustav Mahler’s Fifth Symphony.

Rafael Payare is head of the San Diego Symphony Orchestra in California and, in succession to Kent Nagano, music director of the Orchestre symphonique de Montréal, which is one of Canada's most renowned orchestras.

  • Staatskapelle Berlin
  • Rafael Payare, Conductor


Unsuk Chin (*1961)
Cello Concerto
for cello and orchestra (2006 – 2008/2013)

Gustav Mahler (1860 – 1911)
Symphony No. 5 in C sharp minor (1901 – 1904/1911)
Additional information
Participating artists
Alisa Weilerstein
Staatskapelle Berlin
Rafael Payare