At the annual press conference of the Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin (DSO) on Tuesday, 29 April 2025, Managing Director Dr Thomas Schmidt-Ott, the Head of Artistic Planning Marlene Brüggen as well as Claudia Benker-Schreiber (cello), member of the orchestra board, presented the projects of the 2025/2026 season at the Haus der Kulturen der Welt (HKW). Guest speakers included HKW’s Director and Chief Curator Professor Dr Bonaventure Soh Bejeng Ndikung and the American composer, trombonist, musicologist and author Professor George E. Lewis. Outstanding artists, great works, new formats and exciting experiments – the public can look forward to a new season filled with discoveries.
With its thematic focus ‘Afrodiaspora – Composing While Black’, the DSO remains true to its core principle: with relish and curiousity, lending its musical voice to the new, the unknown and the unprecedented, without neglecting the core repertoire of great symphonies and instrumental concertos. The spotlight is on the music of Black composers from four centuries and many countries who have introduced the most diverse musical traditions and worlds of experience into their compositions. The DSO is showcasing them and their works, which until now have hardly played a role in the Eurocentric canon and concert life or in the music-historical literature. In its symphonic concerts at the Philharmonie Berlin, it will present music by Joseph Bologne, Chevalier de Saint-Georges, Florence Price, William L. Dawson, Margaret Bonds and George Walker, as well as contemporaries Adolphus Hailstork, Billy Childs, Hannah Kendall, Olly Wilson and many others. Jessie Montgomery has been commissioned by the orchestra to write a concerto to be premiered by its “Artist in Focus”, the South African cellist Abel Selaocoe, a virtuoso at crossing over between musical worlds. There will also be two concerts of chamber music in the Haus der Kulturen der Welt, which along with its Director and Chief Curator Professor Dr Bonaventure Soh Bejeng Ndikung has been the collaborating partner in ‘Afrodiaspora – Composing While Black’. Serving the DSO as curator for dramaturgical planning is the musicologist George E. Lewis, a professor at New York’s Columbia University. Jointly with musicologist Dr Harald Kisiedu, he edited the bilingual two-volume essay collection ‘Composing While Black: Afrodiasporic New Music Today’ published in 2023. ›Afrodiaspora – Composing While Black‹ is supported by the federal programme ›Exzellente Orchesterlandschaft Deutschland‹.
Jahrespressekonferenz am 29. April 2025, #1
at the Haus der Kulturen der Welt (HKW). Prof Dr Bonaventure Soh Bejeng Ndikung, Marlene Brüggen, Prof George E. Lewis, Claudia Benker-Schreiber, Dr Thomas Schmidt-Ott (left to right)
Copyright: Marlene Pfau
Jahrespressekonferenz am 29. April 2025, #2
at the Haus der Kulturen der Welt (HKW). Prof Dr Bonaventure Soh Bejeng Ndikung, Marlene Brüggen, Prof George E. Lewis, Claudia Benker-Schreiber and Dr Thomas Schmidt-Ott (left to right)
Copyright: Marlene Pfau
Jahrespressekonferenz am 29. April 2025, #3
Professor George E. Lewis, curator for dramaturgical planning of the DSO 2025/2026 season
Copyright: Marlene Pfau
Jahrespressekonferenz am 29. April 2025, #4
at the Haus der Kulturen der Welt (HKW). Dr Harald Kisiedu (Co-curator of the DSO 2025/2026 season), Claudia Benker-Schreiber, Prof Dr Bonaventure Soh Bejeng Ndikung, Prof George E. Lewis, Marlene Brüggen, Dr Thomas Schmidt-Ott (left to right)
Copyright: Marlene Pfau
Jahrespressekonferenz am 29. April 2025, #5
Professor Dr Bonaventure Soh Bejeng Ndikung, Director and Chief Curator of the Haus der Kulturen der Welt
Copyright: Marlene Pfau
Jahrespressekonferenz am 29. April 2025, #6
at the Haus der Kulturen der Welt (HKW). Prof Dr Bonaventure Soh Bejeng Ndikung, Marlene Brüggen, Prof George E. Lewis, Claudia Benker-Schreiber and Dr Thomas Schmidt-Ott (left to right)
Copyright: Marlene Pfau
Jahrespressekonferenz am 29. April 2025, #7
at the Haus der Kulturen der Welt (HKW). Prof Dr Bonaventure Soh Bejeng Ndikung, Marlene Brüggen, Prof George E. Lewis, Claudia Benker-Schreiber and Dr Thomas Schmidt-Ott (left to right)
Copyright: Marlene Pfau
Jahrespressekonferenz am 29. April 2025, #8
Claudia Benker-Schreiber (Representative of the Orchestra Board) and DSO’s Managing Director Dr Thomas Schmidt-Ott (left to right)
Copyright: Marlene Pfau
Jahrespressekonferenz am 29. April 2025, #9
Benjamin Dries, Head of Communications and Marketing
Copyright: Marlene Pfau
Jahrespressekonferenz am 29. April 2025, #10
at the Haus der Kulturen der Welt (HKW). Dr Harald Kisiedu (Co-curator of the DSO 2025/2026 season), Claudia Benker-Schreiber, Prof Dr Bonaventure Soh Bejeng Ndikung, Prof George E. Lewis, Marlene Brüggen, Dr Thomas Schmidt-Ott (left to right)
Copyright: Marlene Pfau