The concert season in Berlin will again be launched by Musikfest Berlin, hosted by Berliner Festspiele in cooperation with the Foundation Berliner Philharmoniker. Over 21 days, 26 events at the Philharmonie, its Chamber Music Hall and at Konzerthaus Berlin will present 65 works by around 25 composers, featuring 22 instrumental and vocal ensembles and more than 50 soloists from the international music scene.

At this year’s Musikfest Berlin, the music of Hector Berlioz, who rhapsodized over the music city of Berlin and who died 150 years ago this year, is the occasion for a rapid tour d’horizon through the music of the French and European modernism: from 30 August to 19 September over 26 events, with Berlin’s prominent orchestras and numerous guest ensembles and soloists from the international music scene.

Sir John Eliot Gardiner, the Orchestre Révolutionnaire et Romantique, which will be performing for the first time in Berlin, and the Monteverdi Choir will open the festival on 31 August with Berlioz’s comic opera “Benvenuto Cellini”. Awaiting audiences are guest appearances from the London Symphony Orchestra with Sir Simon Rattle, the Orchestre Les Siècles with François Xavier Roth, the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra Amsterdam with Tugan Sokhiev, the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Zubin Mehta, and many others.

And, of course, the major orchestras of Berlin, the music city so admired by Berlioz, will complete the line-up. In addition to orchestral concerts, the Musikfest Berlin also presents semi-staged and concertante opera performances, chamber music, the world premiere of the restored silent film “La Roue” by Abel Gance – around 10,000 metres of film with seven hours of music by Arthur Honegger – and a guest performance by the famous ensemble of the Umewaka Kennōkai Foundation Tokyo: Japanese Nō Theater on the stage of the Philharmonie Berlin. (Picture App: Tugan Sokhiev © David Beecroft)