PEER GYNT! – 51st ANNIVERSARY CONCERT
GERMAN-NORDIC YOUTH PHILHARMONIC

Tickets: Family concert on Sunday, January 3, 2027, at 3:30 p.m.
in the Chamber Music Hall Berlin Philharmonie

Tickets: Concert on Tuesday, January 5, at 8 p.m.
in the Main Hall Berlin Philharmonie

THE ORCHESTRA

The German-Nordic Youth Philharmonic is an international symphony orchestra based in Berlin, which conducts its work in the form of orchestra courses. The founder, artistic director and conductor of the orchestra, Andreas Peer Kähler, is supported by a highly qualified team of experienced instructors. The orchestra is made up of about 90 young musicians from approximately 30 countries around the world, most of whom are students at international music colleges and academies.

The German-Nordic Youth Philharmonic designs its concert programs thematically and often commissions compositions for them. The orchestra is known for its dramaturgically exciting and unconventionally designed concert programs as well as for its outstanding music education work. Since 2021, in addition to its traditional concert in early January at the Philharmonie, it has also performed regularly in June as part of the family concert series of the Kammerorchester Unter den Linden in the Kammermusiksaal of the Philharmonie.

The upcoming project, at the turn of 2026/27, will mark the orchestra’s 51st working phase. Since the first German-Nordic Orchestra Week, which took place over New Year’s Eve 1981/82, as a spontaneous student project under very basic conditions in what was then West Berlin, the orchestra has witnessed the fall of the Berlin Wall, several economic crises and COVID-19, has continued to develop artistically and organizationally, and has established itself as a small but very special and self-confident part of Berlin’s musical life.

The German-Nordic Youth Philharmonic Orchestra is a registered, non-profit association with the aim of promoting musical youth work and is a corporate member of Jeunesses Musicales Deutschland.

THE “PEER GYNT!” PROJECT

The upcoming project at the turn of 2026/27 is dedicated to PEER GYNT, the legendary Norwegian national hero. We’ll tell his story with the help of compositions by Edvard Grieg, Alfred Schnittke, Andreas Peer Kähler and the two 20th-century Norwegian composers Harald Saeverud and Geirr Tveitt. Kähler’s contribution to the topic, his ‘Scenes from Ibsen’s Peer Gynt’, is a commissioned composition and will have its world premiere as part of this project. The 22 individual compositions (total performance duration: approx. 85 minutes) will not be performed separately by composer, but will tell the story of Peer Gynt in chronological order according to Henrik Ibsen’s drama and with dramatic coherence from the shifting perspectives of five composers from three centuries. Stylistic breaks and surprising transitions are a deliberate part of this unique concert dramaturgy. Thanks to this unconventional structure, the concert programme will captivate both audience and musicians with its challenging musical content as well as with its dramatic tension. The concert evening is further enhanced by the performance of the young Norwegian soprano Eirin Rognerud as Solveig.

The project „PEER GYNT!“ will conclude with two concerts at the Philharmonie Berlin:

• A Family Concert on Sunday, 3 January 2027, at 15:30 in the Philharmonie’s Chamber Music Hall,

where selected parts of the programme will be presented for children and their families

• A Gala Concert on Tuesday, 5 January 2027, at 20:00 in the Philharmonie’s Great Hall

THE PROGRAMME OF THE GALA CONCERT IN THE PHILHARMONIE:

Edvard Grieg Excerpts from the scene music to Peer Gynt (1865)

Alfred Schnittke Excerpts from the ballett music to Peer Gynt (1968)

Harald Saeverud Excerpts from the scene music to Peer Gynt (1947)

Geirr Tveitt Velkomne med æra from „100 folktunes from Hardanger“

Andreas Peer Kähler Scenes from Ibsen’s Peer Gynt (2026) – world premiere

Conductors: Andreas Peer Kähler and Martin Braun

Soloist: Eirin Rognerud, soprano (Oslo) as Solveig

Concert introduction by Andreas Peer Kähler at 19.15 in the great hall