The Bridges Kammerorchester presents one of its most successful programmes in a new format: in this performative concert, the orchestra plays without a conductor. This allows the orchestra members to interact with one another autonomously and responsibly.

Venice — once a leading trading power in the Mediterranean, an internationally significant music metropolis and a cosmopolitan city — serves in this programme as a model example of inspiring exchange between (musical) cultures.

Starting from the Iberian La Follia in the variations of the famous Venetian composer Antonio Vivaldi, the arc spans compositions that combine styles from Arabic, Persian and European classical music, jazz, contemporary music, Eastern European folklore, and various forms of Central Asian and Latin American music. From the diversity of the musicians’ identities and in the tension between tradition and innovation, the unique Bridges sound emerges.

The works are composed or arranged by orchestra members.

The concert programme combines works by the famous European masters Mozart and Beethoven with the diversity of cultures and musical traditions that shape our society today: Beethoven’s Fifth Piano Concerto and Mozart’s “Little” Symphony in G minor are re-composed by members of the Bridges Kammerorchester and thus translated into our transcultural present.

The European great masters of classical music are juxtaposed with Majid Derakhshani, one of the most important Persian composers of art music in the present day. Further original compositions by the orchestra members, some of them also composed collectively, engage with the cultural diversity of the 21st century in a variety of ways. Making one’s own heritage audible while at the same time developing a shared new sonic language runs as a central theme throughout the concert programme.

The works are composed or arranged by orchestra members.

Under the title “Identigration”, the Bridges Kammerorchester presents a staged concert evening that explores the interplay of personal identity and integration in groups. Musicians from diverse cultural contexts bring their musical homelands into a lively dialogue and shape a shared sonic space that makes belonging tangible not as origin, but as encounter. In a continuous, spirited programme without an intermission, the evening unfolds with great energy and openness.

The works are composed or arranged by orchestra members.

“Complementarity” is the programme that demonstrates the strength of diversity: orchestra members from a wide range of musical and cultural backgrounds create something new and express a diversity that is both contrasting and complementary. The programme stands for the vitality of the Bridges sound: in his title piece, Peter Klohmann explores complementarity in rhythm and melody and creates multifaceted kaleidoscope effects; Majid Derakhshani combines classical Persian music with European influences. Further musical highlights include original compositions by, among others, Johanna-Leonore Dahlhoff (artistic direction) and transcultural arrangements of famous classics by Antonio Vivaldi and Hassan Skaf.

It is performed deliberately without a conductor. This creates a special form of musical collaboration: the musicians shape tempo, dynamics and transitions together, listen closely to one another and make decisions in the moment. This shared responsibility leads to a heightened stage presence and makes the interplay immediately tangible — as a living, breathing process that embodies the idea of complementarity not only thematically but also in practice.

I am from Nowhere is a concert format for young audiences performed by the full Bridges Kammerorchester. It features almost entirely original compositions and is carried by dramaturgically evolving layers of light and text.

“I am from Nowhere” — this title can have many meanings. Atefeh Einali chose it in response to a formative experience. Laws, regulations and restrictions had prevented her from travelling further at the time. The borders felt like a separation from the rest of the world that she was not able to cross. As a composer, Atefeh Einali draws on the Persian musical tradition, develops it further and thus finds her own voice. Her music conveys the meaning of the title directly and goes far beyond it.

In the concert programme of the same name, the Bridges Kammerorchester explores the various kinds of music the orchestra members grew up with and continue to engage with. Through original compositions and arrangements, they make audible that music is rarely unambiguous. Each work lets the ensemble’s unique instrumentation resound in a new way. Sometimes a particular musical tradition can be clearly heard, as in the pieces Samai Bayat, Termeh and Cirilí. Or a melody may sound like folklore but is in fact newly invented, as in Constantinople. At other times, distinct elements from jazz or European classical music become audible and suddenly develop in another direction. Other works are hard to assign to any particular style. Or are they?

Collective, transcultural, transepochal

In the programme Beyond time and space, produced by ARTE Concert in 2025, the Bridges Kammerorchester transcends boundaries: boundaries between continents and nations, between classical music and modernity, and the boundaries of the traditional compositional process.

Beethoven beyond time and space: Johanna-Leonore Dahlhoff’s transcultural and transepochal short version of Ludwig van Beethoven’s famous Fifth Piano Concerto does without the piano. Prominent original solos as well as newly composed passages are taken on by instruments including kaval, saxophone, harp, tar and taiko (optionally a large drum).

Further highlights include the collective work alterity 2.0 Charukeshi’s Castle by Hindol Deb, Alireza Meghrazi and Peter Klohmann (part of the collective four-movement Bridges Symphony No. 1 “alteritzy”, created between 2024 and 2027), as well as Solstice by violinist, rebab player and guest composer Ceren Türkmenoğlu.

Festive music from Europe, Central Asia and the Levant region

Together with mandolin virtuoso Alon Sariel, the Bridges Kammerorchester invites audiences to a festive concert: alongside transcultural arrangements of well-known Christmas classics from Europe, the Levant region and other parts of the world, the programme includes works by famous composers such as Antonio Vivaldi, Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov and Masud Jamil, as well as original compositions.

In Vivaldi’s famous Concerto for Two Mandolins, changing orchestra members share the solo part with mandolin soloist Alon Sariel, who is also the musical director.

In the four-movement Weihnukka Suite, orchestra members Johanna-Leonore Dahlhoff, Christoph Langheim, Peter Klohmann and Maria Carolina Pardo bring together Christmas carols with well-known songs from the Jewish cultural sphere for the festival of lights, Hanukkah. A special highlight is the well-known Christmas carol Tochter Zion by George Frideric Handel, which is also known as a Hanukkah song under the title “Hawa Narima”.

Eight composers, three centuries, one symphony

BridgesBrücken places the orchestra members’ collective compositions centre stage. At times, their personal styles and individual musical socialisations are clearly perceptible. At others, they are so fantastically interwoven that the participants themselves can no longer separate them. In this way, the orchestra members build new, unique bridges from the present moment — bridges that recall tradition while also pointing towards the future.

Also featured: the internationally acclaimed exceptional musician Wu Wei, who brings the more than 3,000-year-old Chinese mouth organ sheng into the transcultural sound world of the Bridges Kammerorchester as a highly virtuosic sonic body.

Eight composers from three centuries are involved in Bridges Symphony No. 2. The symphony thus builds bridges from Persian art music (“Salam”) via European art music (Clair de lune) to a collective composition written by orchestra members Johanna-Leonore Dahlhoff, Peter Klohmann and Salim Salari together with sheng soloist Wu Wei (alterity 3.0 Leguan City).

With The Earth Revives by guest composer and sheng player Zhang Meng, East Asian musical traditions are featured before the orchestra builds a bridge to a fictional memory of South American rhythms and landscapes with Recuentos by Andrés Rosales. Cycles (Eduardo Sabella, Rabie Azar) and Segahmania (Dennis Merz, Salim Salari) are connected by the collective bridge piece Mipala (Christoph Langheim, Gabriel Mientka, Maria Carolina Pardo). With Mosaik am Main, Walid Khatba builds bridges between the musical traditions of his country of origin and the musical diversity of his new home, Frankfurt.

Soloist: Wu Wei, sheng

Conductor: Xizi Wang (tbc)