Solidarity with Ukraine

Schloss Bellevue
(Photo: Steffen Kugler)

German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier and the Berliner Philharmoniker invite you to a solidarity concert for Ukraine at Schloss Bellevue on Sunday, 27 March 2022, at 11:00. Under the direction of Nodoka Okisawa, musicians from Ukraine, Russia, Belarus, Germany and other countries will play pieces by Ukrainian, Russian and Polish composers.

Entitled “For freedom and peace. A concert by the Berliner Philharmoniker at Schloss Bellevue”, the performers express their opposition to the attack on Ukraine, combined with a commitment to freedom and self-determination. The concert will be broadcast live on rbb television and rbbKultur from 11:00. It can be followed online via livestream on the website of the German President and in the Digital Concert Hall of the Berliner Philharmoniker.

At the beginning and end of the concert, the Berliner Philharmoniker will play a piece by the Ukrainian composer Valentin Silvestrov, who will be present. The composer currently lives in Berlin, having had to flee Kyiv. In addition, the Russian pianist Evgeny Kissin will perform a polonaise by Frédéric Chopin and, together with members of the Berliner Philharmoniker, two movements from a piano trio by Dmitri Shostakovich. The Russian baritone Rodion Pogossov will sing Prince Yeletsky’s aria from Tchaikovsky’s opera The Queen of Spades, which the Berliner Philharmoniker are currently rehearsing for their Easter Festival in Baden-Baden beginning on 9 April. The focus of the festival this year is Russian music.

The concert will include an appeal for donations for emergency aid by the UN Refugee Agency, of which the Berliner Philharmoniker have been an ambassador since September 2021. The fundraising campaign has been running since 25 February and has been supported at all public performances of the orchestra since then.

Conductor Nodoka Okisawa steps in for Kirill Petrenko.