The new album “Eternity” of German star soprano Simone Kermes marks a fresh and daring step in her career, being her first ever self-published album and being released digitally only.
The music is a most intimate take on the essential elements of song: Accompanied only by a single theorbo, her performance emanates pure emotion, delicate sensitivity and a deep sense of existential meaning.
Recorded during Lockdown in spring 2020, this album reflects Simone Kermes’ longing for artistic expression and her existential need for singing and performing. At the same time, it is a declaration of love and dedication to her audience, a message of hope to all the people that she cannot meet in person during these difficult times.

The two-time ECHO Jazz Award winner Wolfgang Haffner is without doubt the best-known German drummer, and at the same time one of the few German musicians who are also successful worldwide.

Passion and temperament, creativity and poetry, humour and irony: these are the characteristics that characterise Anna Depenbusch - not only on stage but also backstage. With her last studio album “Das Alphabet der ANNA DEPENBUSCH in schwarz-weiß” (The alphabet of ANNA DEPENBUSCH in black and white), the singer-songwriter from Hamburg showed that it takes no more than a piano and her voice to immerse oneself in a world full of fantasy for a few hours. In this world, stories written about life, anecdotes, truths, dreams, desires and longings merge in a symbiosis. Whether she whispers or whistles, caresses or trembles, jokes playfully or simply touches you deeply: “Anna Depenbusch is the measure of all things in her field, modern chanson” (Hannoversche Allgemeine Zeitung).

“This is one of those rare occasions. The eleven-year-old pianist Alexandra Dovgan can hardly be called a wonder child, for while this is a wonder, it is not child’s play. What one hears is a performance by a grown-up individual and a person. It is a special pleasure for me to commend the art of her remarkable music teacher, Mira Marchenko. Yet there are things that cannot be taught and learned. Alexandra Dovgan’s talent is exceptionally harmonious. Her playing is honest and concentrated. I predict a great future for her…“
Grigory Sokolov

Grigory Sokolov returns to Schloss Elmau –a certainly compelling and impressive concert evening with numerous encores.

Zu Beginn des Jahres 1807 notierte Benjamin Constant in seinem Tagebuch: „Ich werden einen Roman schreiben, der meine Geschichte ist.“ Bereits fünfzehn Tage später ist ein Klassiker geboren: zeitlos durch die erschütternde Authentizität des Selbsterlittenen, doch in seinem Zwang zur Selbstbeobachtung geradezu aktuell.

Wales im Jahr 1921: Der Erste Weltkrieg und die Spanische Grippe haben gewütet, Europa ist am Boden. Der junge Merce Blackboro ist dem Fronteinsatz in der Antarktis entgangen, leidet jedoch seit seiner Rückkehr von Shackletons gescheiterter Endurance-Expedition unter der heimischen Enge. Umso mehr, als Ennid Muldoon, die Liebe seines Lebens, eines Tages fluchtartig verschwindet, um ihr Glück in Amerika zu suchen. Mit ihr auf demselben Auswandererschiff reist inmitten der Elenden Europas der Tycoon und Trinker Diver Robey, der von einer Flugverbindung zwischen der alten und der neuen Welt träumt. Als der Dampfer in einen gewaltigen Schneesturm gerät und manövrierunfähig auf offener See treibt, scheinen sich die Hoffnungen aller – ob arm oder reich – zu zerschlagen. Merce muss einen Weg finden, Ennid und damit sich selbst zu retten.

Levickis' virtuosity and versatility in classical and contemporary repertoire changes the way we perceive the instrument. He was the first accordionist to be signed to Universal Music Decca Classic, and his debut album climbed straight to the top of the official classic album charts in the UK. Now it's well on the way to winning over audiences in Germany as well.

Guest appearance. With the kind permission of the Residenztheater.

What is the secret of good style, how does language become literature? Michael Maar explores this question in his main and life's work, for which he spent forty years reading. What is manner, what is jargon, and what are the pitfalls that almost everyone falls into? How must the elementary particles interact for the perfect prose sentence? Maar shows who can do dialogue and who can't, why Hölderlin is overrated and Rahel Varnhagen underrated, why without the Austrian Jews a continent of style would disappear, why Kafka is an alien and why only Heimito von Doderer comes close to Thomas Mann. In fifty portraits, from Goethe to Gernhardt, from Kleist to Kronauer, he unfolds en passant a history of German literature.

The Canadian bass baritone Gerald Finley and the British pianist Julius Drake are among the best that can currently be heard in both Lied. In Schloss Elmau the two can now be heard with Schubert's Schwanengesang , a must for all „Lied“-aficionados!

Annett Lousian, probably the most charming voice of Germany is back in Schloss Elmau with her new album "Kleine große Liebe" - full of catchy lyrics and a fresh, modern sound.

Dmitrij Kapitelman can speak Saxon better than the official to whom he applies for a German passport. After 25 years as a compatriot, most of his life. But no formality is too small for the bureaucracy when it comes to immigrants. Ms Kunze demands an apostille from Kiev. So he travels to the city of his birth, with which nothing connects him except childhood memories. These memories are beautiful, for they contain loving, unfailing parents. And difficult, because at present the family is divided. Until fate brings them together again in Kiev.

The duo Runge & Ammon was born out of a shared passion for chamber music crossovers around jazz, tango, rock, theatre and film music.Their programme “RollOverBeethoven” juxtaposes music for cello and piano by Beethoven with the revolutionary avant-garde icons of rock-pop history.

“This is one of those rare occasions. The eleven-year-old pianist Alexandra Dovgan can hardly be called a wonder child, for while this is a wonder, it is not child’s play. What one hears is a performance by a grown-up individual and a person. It is a special pleasure for me to commend the art of her remarkable music teacher, Mira Marchenko. Yet there are things that cannot be taught and learned. Alexandra Dovgan’s talent is exceptionally harmonious. Her playing is honest and concentrated. I predict a great future for her…“
Grigory Sokolov

Grigory Sokolov returns to Schloss Elmau –a certainly compelling and impressive concert evening with numerous encores.

Dieter Kosslick has experienced a lot as head of the Berlinale: whether he had to bring a major construction site to a standstill so that the Rolling Stones could sleep or persuaded Clint Eastwood to come to Berlin. But more important to him than stars and glamour was always the claim to show films that hold up a mirror to society in order to change it with the power of art. His mottos shortly after the turn of the millennium were “Accept Diversity” and “Towards Tolerance”. The Berlinale underwent sustainable and climate-friendly changes, becoming the world's first CO2-certified film festival, and a commitment to justice and human dignity shaped the festival's character.
But with Corona, cinema has also been plunged into a severe crisis that has become existential with the rise of streaming services. In this personal and anecdote-rich book, Dieter Kosslick tells us what we owe to cinema and why we must save it.

Super-class summit meeting "made in Schloss Elmau": Jazz pianist and composer Brad Mehldau and tenor Ian Bostridge met a few years ago in Schloss Elmau. They both wanted to work together, and so Brad Mehldau composed a classical song cycle for Ian Bostridge, which has celebrated its world premiere in Schloss Elmau before the duo embarked on a concert tour through the great concert halls including the Elbphilharmonie.

Please note: due to the adult nature of some Lied texts (inc. Brecht), this concert is not recommended for children and teenagers.

The Polish author Olga Tokarczuk was honoured "for a narrative imagination that with encyclopedic passion represents the crossing of boundaries as a form of life."

“It's like driving two BMWs at the same time,” enthused the conductor Michael Schønwandt after a concert with Lucas and Arthur Jussen. Since their earliest childhood, the two Dutch brothers have sat together at the piano, performed before their Queen Beatrix, won prizes at competitions and received lessons from Maria João Pires and Menahem Pressler. The two acclaimed Wunderkinder have long since developed into an internationally sought-after piano duo that has conquered concert halls all over the world and brought a breath of fresh air to the classical music scene.

Denis Kozhukhin is one of the most interesting pianists of the younger generation. Since winning the famous Queen Elizabeth Competition in Brussels in 2010, Kozhukhin has made a great career, regularly leading him to important orchestras such as the Berlin Staatskapelle or the Chicago Symphony Orchestra under conductors such as Daniel Barenboim or Simon Rattle. Kozhukhin is also a regular guest at Schloss Elmau.

Henrike Hahn and Jonathan Hutter approach the personalities of Sophie Scholl and Fritz Hartnagel together with the musician Rahel Hutter. The three actors take the audience back to the time of World War II and bring this unusual and moving love story to the stage.
They show two young personalities who struggle for their views and convictions, endure opposition and do not give up searching for the truth. Sophie Scholl, as a member of the White Rose resistance group, will pay for her fight against the Nazi regime of injustice with death.

The King's Singers are the kings of a cappella and world-famous British export stars in terms of highest musical quality and best English charm, taking the audience by storm.