Under the baton of Joana Mallwitz, the  KHO and the Rundfunkchor will perform Hans Werner Henze's Symphony No. 9 at the Musikfest. The Ninth ist at once a large-scale “dramatic poem without a stage” and a memorial against fascism and war. In 2026, the composer, who died in 2012, would have turned 100. Henze was an avowed anti-fascist and described this symphony as the “apotheosis of the terrible and the painful” as well as the “summa summarum” of his oeuvre.