Back to Press Release List > 12/12/2007 - Wide Array of Concerts in Zankel Hall during Berlin in Lights Festival

As part of its major Berlin in Lights festival, Carnegie Hall presents four Zankel Hall concerts from November 5 to 10 that celebrate the diversity of Berlin’s music scene, both past and present. These performances offer a snapshot of Germany’s vibrant capital city through classical, cabaret, world, and techno music concerts.

The four Zankel Hall concerts are:

•   Nomad SoundSystem—Monday, November 5 at 9:00 p.m.
    Berlin-based Nomad SoundSystem sits on the cutting edge between electronic
    dance grooves and passionate Arabic live music, appealing to club and world music
    audiences alike. Hailing from Tunisia, Algeria, Japan, and Berlin, the group’s members
    reflect the multicultural melting pot that is Berlin today. This performance marks Nomad
    SoundSystem’s U.S. debut.

•   HK Gruber Conducts Weill & Eisler—Thursday, November 8 at 7:30 p.m.
    Conductor-chansonnier HK Gruber celebrates the decadence and sharp wit of
    Weimar Berlin’s greatest theatrical composers Kurt Weill and Hanns Eisler in this
    performance with chamber orchestra. The program includes Weill’s Little Threepenny
    Music, the song “Berlin im Licht” (“Berlin in Lights”), and two orchestral suites by
    Eisler, as well as songs with lyrics by Bertolt Brecht.

•   Nevzat Akpinar Ensemble—Friday, November 9 at 8:30 p.m.
    The Nevzat Akpinar Ensemble, comprising members of Berlin's large Turkish and
    Kurdish communities, makes its US debut, performing the folk and ritual music of the
    Alevi, a mystical Sufi order; intricate baglama (lute) and vocal music from various regions
    of Turkey; dance music of central Anatolia; and original compositions. The group, which
    is under the direction of composer-musician-teacher Nevzat Akpinar, features seven of
    Berlin’s finest performers on baglama, the predominant stringed instrument of Turkey.
    This performance is presented by Carnegie Hall in partnership with the World Music Institute.

•   KNM Berlin—Saturday, November 10 at 7:00 p.m.
    KNM Berlin, acclaimed for its HouseMusik concerts in Berlin—in which private
    apartments, offices, shops, and cafés are used for a concert on the move—brings its
    innovative approach to Zankel Hall. In a mini-marathon program entitled Metropolis:
    Counterpoint Berlin, KNM presents a survey of today’s avant-garde music scene in Berlin
    with video, sound installations, and sampling as well as virtuosic music making.

Formed in late 2002, Berlin-based Nomad SoundSystem effortlessly merges disparate sounds such as North African raï, oriental-electronics, drum & bass, rock, dub, and gnawa–trance to create a highly original urban mixture. The group’s sound is as vibrant and varied as the cultural background of its members, who hail from Tunisia, Algeria, Japan, and Berlin. In the five years since its creation, Nomad SoundSystem has performed alongside Rachid Taha, Nitin Sawhney, and Transglobal Underground. The group was the recipient of the newcomer RUTH award at TFF Rudolstadt in 2005 and the CREOLE Berlin/Brandenburg award 2006. Nomad SoundSystem’s self-titled debut album was released in May 2007 in Germany.

Composer, conductor, chansonnier, and double bass player HK Gruber is one of the most well-known figures in contemporary music. Born in Vienna in 1943, Mr. Gruber sang with the Vienna Boys Choir as a child and then studied at the Vienna Hochschule für Musik. In 1961, he began playing double bass with the ensemble die reihe and from 1969 to 1998 he played in the Radio Symphony Orchestra-Vienna. Mr. Gruber first began performing as a singer/actor with the MOB art and tone ART ensemble, a group he co-founded in 1968 with fellow Viennese composers Kurt Schwertsik and Otto Zykan. Since then he has appeared extensively in this role, most notably in his own work Frankenstein!!, and also in Schoenberg’s Pierrot lunaire and Maxwell Davies’ Eight Songs for a Mad King, as well as in the works of Kurt Weill and Hanns Eisler. Mr. Gruber is in demand internationally as a conductor, having conducted orchestras such as the Vienna Philharmonic, Cleveland Orchestra, Rotterdam Philharmonic, Ensemble Modern, BBC Philharmonic, BBC Symphony, Los Angeles Philharmonic, and the New World Symphony; he has appeared at festivals such as the BBC Proms, Lucerne, Gstaad, and Musica Nova. Passionate about the music of Kurt Weill and Hanns Eisler, Gruber is a frequent interpreter of their works and has made several recordings of their music for BMG and Largo.

The Nevzat Akpinar Ensemble features seven of Berlin’s finest performers on baglama, the predominant stringed instrument of Turkey. The ensemble performs the folk and ritual music of the Alevi, a mystical Sufi order; intricate baglama (lute) and vocal music from various regions of Turkey; dance music of central Anatolia; and original compositions. The group is under the direction of composer-musician-teacher Nevzat Akpinar, who was born in 1968 in Sivas, Central Anatolia, and moved to Berlin, Germany in 1980. He studied with the baglama virtuoso Talip Oezkan, Turkish composer Tayfun Erdem, and Henning Schmidt. As a baglama player, Mr. Akpinar toured Europe with Mikas Theodorakis and Zuelfue Livaneli and participated in the Abduction from the Seraglio under the direction of George Tabori. He made two recordings with Zotos Compania, a Greek-German-Turkish band. As a composer, Mr. Akpinar has written solo pieces for baglama, works set to Turkish poetry, and chamber music. He composed Johann Dede, a work for string orchestra, oboe, baglama, and choir, which was performed by the Berlin Symphonic Orchestra at the Berlin Philharmonic Hall. Together with Haydar Kutluer, Mr. Akpinar directs Baglama Muezik, a baglama school in Berlin.

Founded in the late 1980s by students of the Hanns Eisler College of Music in Berlin, Kammerensemble Neue Musik Berlin (KNM Berlin) is a chamber ensemble devoted to the performance of experimental and contemporary music. In this process, the interaction with the composer and his/her work goes beyond the mere musical interpretation of the piece: it provides a dialogue of different temporal, spatial, and cultural contexts and provides retrospective impulses for the work of the composers. KNM Berlin consciously integrates the “open” music concepts of the 1960s with current music-making trends. The constant extension of the ensemble’s own musical possibilities—often by means of the addition of electronic media—is also an important aspect for the musicians of KNM Berlin and projects in the areas of installation and performance continue to be a fixed part of the ensemble’s work. KNM Berlin is a leading ensemble for contemporary music, with its own concert series at the Academy of Arts, concerts at home and abroad, opera productions, and guest performances at the most important European festivals and concerts venues around the world.

Presented from November 2–18, Berlin in Lights is a 17-day celebration of the extraordinary city that is Berlin today, offering a snapshot of Germany’s vibrant capital city through orchestral, chamber, cabaret, world, and techno music concerts as well as film, architecture, literature, and photography events. With close to 50 events presented at Carnegie Hall and throughout New York City, the scope of the festival is made possible through collaborations with a broad range of cultural partners including The American Academy in Berlin, the Center for Architecture, the German Consulate General in New York, Goethe-Institut New York, the Guggenheim Museum, The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), Neue Galerie New York, P.S.1 Contemporary Art Center, Thirteen/WNET New York, WNYC—New York Public Radio, and the World Music Institute.

Further information on all events and participants may be found at Carnegie Hall’s dedicated Berlin in Lights website: www.carnegiehall.org/berlininlights . The website, which goes live in late September, will feature a full listing of events, performers, and repertoire, as well as a multimedia component featuring essays on Berlin, audio interviews, video footage, photographs from Berlin in Lights events, and blogs from New York-based writers and participants in the festival.