Season Opening 2025/26

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The Program: Diversity in Harmony
The opening concert features Beethoven alongside Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, Errollyn Wallen, and William L. Dawson. As in the “Triple Concerto”: multiple voices, equal, together, and on the same level.

 

Sheku says about it: “It’s wonderful music that conveys a powerful spirit and strong sense of life.” Entirely in the spirit of the Chineke! idea—to give a platform to both classics and lesser-known composers.

 

Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, also known as the “Black Mahler,” conducted the premiere of his Ballade in A minor himself—a work with audible influences from Brahms and Dvořák.

 

Ludwig van Beethoven’s Triple Concerto combines chamber-like intimacy with orchestral grandeur—three soloists engage in an equal dialogue, with the cello taking on a particularly virtuosic role.

 

Errollyn Wallen is one of the most performed living composers and the first woman of color to hold the honorary title “Master of the King’s Music” from the British royal family.

 

William L. Dawson’s Negro Folk Symphony blends late-Romantic soundscapes with West African melody and rhythm.

Program and cast

Chineke! Orchestra
Isata Kanneh-Mason, piano
Tai Murray, violin
Sheku Kanneh-Mason, cello
Andrew Grams, conductor

 

 - Samuel Coleridge-Taylor: Ballade in A minor, op. 33

 - Beethoven: Concerto for Piano, Violin, Cello and Orchestra in C major, op. 56 “Triple Concerto”

 - Errollyn Wallen: FLOURISH

 - William L. Dawson: Negro Folk Symphony

Berliner Philharmonie

The Berliner Philharmonie is a concert hall in Berlin, Germany. Home to the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra, the building is acclaimed for both its acoustics and its architecture.

 

The Philharmonie lies on the south edge of the city's Tiergarten and just west of the former Berlin Wall, an area that for decades suffered from isolation and drabness but that today offers ideal centrality, greenness, and accessibility. Its cross street and postal address is Herbert-von-Karajan-Straße, named for the orchestra's longest-serving principal conductor. The neighborhood, often dubbed the Kulturforum, can be reached on foot from the Potsdamer Platz station.

 

Actually a two-venue facility with connecting lobby, the Philharmonie comprises a Großer Saal of 2,440 seats for orchestral concerts and a chamber-music hall, the Kammermusiksaal, of 1,180 seats. Though conceived together, the smaller venue was added only in the 1980s.

 

By subway (U-Bahn):

Lines U2 (Bahnhöfe Potsdamer Platz or MendelssohnBartholdy-Park)

By city train (S-Bahn):

Lines S1, S2, S25 (Potsdamer Platz)

By regional train:

Lines RE3, RE4, RE5 (Potsdamer Platz)

By bus directly to the Philharmonie:

Lines 200 (Philharmonie), M48, M85 (Kulturforum or Varian-Fry-Straße),
Further bus lines: M29 (Potsdamer Brücke), M41 (Potsdamer Platz)

By car:

A limited number of parking spaces are available on the Philharmonie property. Please use the parking garages under the Sony Center and under the Potsdamer Platz Arkaden (Entrance at Reichpietschufer).

By bycicle:

A limited number of bycicle stands are available on front and behind the Philharmonie. Additional stands can be found in front of the State Library (Staatsbibliothek) across the street.

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