Fresh as Dew. Micro Concert #12 of the Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester Berlin

Adagio non troppo – Allegro
Scherzo (Allegro ma non troppo)

Sofia Gubaidulina Five Etudes for Harp, Double Bass and Percussion

Nine musicians will be coming to the Humboldt Forum for the first micro-concert of the 2025/26 season, most of them fellows of the Orchestra Academy of the Berlin Radio Symphony Orchestra.

The composer Hans Kössler was born in Waldeck in the Fichtel mountains on 1 January 1853. After training in Munich and Dresden, he spent 43 years of his career as a university teacher in Budapest, where he taught composition to Zoltán Kodály, Béla Bartók, Emmerich Kálmán, Ernst von Dohnányi and Leó Weiner, among others. This is why some people also know him as a Hungarian musician named János Koessler. Among Kössler’s approximately 130 compositions, the string sextet is a surprising find due to its outstanding quality. Published in 1902, it is in no way inferior to the much better-known sextets penned by Johannes Brahms.

On 13 March 2025, the Russian composer Sofia Gubaidulina died at the age of 93. The artistic independence that the grand dame of contemporary music enjoyed throughout her life is already evident in the Five Etudes for harp, double bass and percussion. They were premiered “by musician friends in March 1966 at the Moscow Musical Youth Club, the Soviet off-scene, so to speak. What is striking about these five short character pieces is how individual, free from stylistic norms, contrasting and multifaceted they are. Even the boundaries between jazz and folklore are fluid. … After more than half a century, this music still sounds fresh and timeless.” (Eckhard Weber)

Participants

• Cristina Casak * Violin
  
• Seogyun Noh * Violin
  
• Gernot Adrion Viola
  
• Livia Paté * Viola
  
• Danbin Lee * Violoncello
  
• Ji Woo Yoon * Violoncello
  
• Maud Edenwald Harp
  
• Jannis Lichtenfels* Drums
  
• Yuen Kiu Marco Yeung * Double bass
  

• Steffen Georgi, Host
  

* Scholarship holders of the Orchestra Academy of the Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester Berlin


Further information

- A Humboldt Forum ticket is required: €14.00 / reduced €7.00
- The concert begins in the stairwell, where admission is free, and continues in the exhibition rooms of the Museum of Asian Art. A Humboldt Forum ticket is required to attend the second part, which also allows you to visit all the exhibitions in the museum before and after the concert.
- Free for children and young people up to the age of 19, usual discounts apply. Tickets available online or at the ticket office in the foyer.
- Please leave coats and large bags in the cloakroom or lockers before the concert. The number of seats is limited, but there is also standing room. If the venue is overcrowded, we may have to close the doors temporarily.
- Duration: 60 min
- Language: German, no language skills required
- For people with visual impairments
- Stairwell, 3rd floor
- Part of: Microconcerts by the Berlin Radio Symphony Orchestra