Centenary of Pierre Boulez Ensemble Intercontemporain & Friends

French pianist Pierre-Laurent Aimard plays pieces from Olivier Messiaen's "Catalogue d'oiseaux" in Berlin's St Canisius Church.

Pianomania takes the audience on a humorous journey through the secret world of sound and accompanies Stefan Knüpfer in his extraordinary work with the greatest pianists in the world. To select the instrument that corresponds to the vision of the virtuoso, according it to his desire and accompany him until he goes on stage, Stefan Knüpfer has developed nerves of steel, a boundless passion and above ability to translate words into sounds.

For its opening concert, the 2024 Festival Présences pays tribute to Steve Reich. The event features conductor George Jackson, the Ensemble Intercontemporain, the Synergy Vocals choir and Hae-Sun Kang with Héloïse Werner.

In the film One Night. One Life, based on the cycle Pierrot Lunaire, Arnold Schönberg’s opus 21, director Oliver Herrmann has created a surreal, at times grotesque dream world set in a modern city, through which Pierrot moves like a spirit. In each new number she passes through different scenes and levels of the world around us: such as an abattoir, a peep-show, a station or a supermarket.

The Triple Concerto is one of Beethoven's less frequently performed works - probably also because it requires three soloists and makes considerable demands on them. ARTE presents the Concerto for Violin, Violoncello, Piano and Orchestra in C major at the Gewandhaus in Leipzig, performed by an excellent trio of soloists. It is accompanied by the Gewandhaus Orchestra under the direction of Herbert Blomstedt.

Sir Simon Rattle and the LSO are joined by revered French pianist Pierre-Laurent Aimard in a concert film that brings together music by Anton Bruckner and Olivier Messiaen: two composers as united in their devotion to the Catholic faith as they are divergent in their approaches to writing music.

Retrospective on a unique moment of great music. In 1982, two immense musicians pianist Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli and conductor Sergiu Celibidache combined their talents to perform the “Concerto in G Major” by the legendary Ravel.

“My best friend, Anna, asked me if I would mind taking her fifteen-year-old son Itvan to Berlin with me. I accepted immediately.” An elegant, refined man in his forties sets off with Itvan on a long, enjoyable journey, his Winter Journey. They cross snowbound Germany by car. As the man drives the boy through cities and countryside, Itvan discovers the past and the vast job of reunification now underway. Poetry and culture are also part of the journey, which is accompanied by classical German music. When their paths cross with the man's former lovers or the journey provides unexpected encounters, Itvan also gets to know more about the man's own life. When they finally arrive in Berlin, their ways must part. Itvan watches the man leave, taking the melancholy of his existence with him. However their journey together has created an unbreakable tie between the two men. Itvan will never be the same again.