Konzerthausorchester Berlin

The Konzerthausorchester Berlin under Peter Rundel and soloists Wu Wei and Dominik Blum present works by three protagonists: “Šu”, a concert for the sheng, a Chinese mouth organ and orchestra by Berlin-based South Korean composer Unsuk Chin is an example of how a new symphonic language – that goes beyond musical exoticism – can be found using unusual playing techniques and consciously created instrumentation. Soloist Wu Wei and the orchestra keep the audience on tenterhooks with their excessive interplay.

Chemnitz-born Friedrich Goldmann began his musical career in Berlin. As a composer, conductor and teacher, he became a central personality in the institutional platforms of New Music, initially in the eastern part of the city and later in the reunited metropolis. During his final creative phase, Friedrich Goldmann preferred an “absolute” compositional style, which dissolved the rigid boundaries of musical material in favour of a reinterpretation of sound phenomena. His “Konzertstück für Orchester” from 2005/2006 will premiere posthumously at MaerzMusik.

Michael Wertmüller from Switzerland is one of the most interesting border crossers of contemporary music to find a second home in Berlin. The composer and drummer, once a student of Dieter Schnebel, writes “unthinkable” scores. They not only go beyond the usual musical and technical possibilities and pose new challenges for the interpreter. With their expressivity, their dynamic and the simultaneity of varying sound processes, they also oppose listening to music in a linear course of time. With the orchestral work “Zeitkugel”, Wertmüller programmatically takes up the topic of time once again. He wrote it for the multifaceted pianist and organist Dominik Blum, who is familiar with Michael Wertmüller’s pluralistic musical structures after many common concerts, and who does not shy away from testing utopian ideas to his own boundaries and realizing them musically.