Gazing at the stars always brings humanity as a whole into focus. Set against the vastness and mystery of the universe, “all forms of national, ethnic or religious chauvinism, which are unfortunately on the rise in today’s world, must seem grotesque”, as our Composer in Residence Unsuk Chin puts it. In the “Unter Sternen” festival, the Konzerthaus Berlin zooms out into the cosmic wide angle for ten days and embarks on a journey into space – and to ourselves.

Like no other art form, music is capable of giving expression to the unfathomable dimensions of the universe. It is not without reason that early astronomers understood the movements of the celestial bodies as a musical order, as “sphere harmony” – a conceptual connection that has continued to influence thought from antiquity through the Renaissance into the 20th century and to composers such as György Ligeti. His micro-polyphonic sound textures in “Atmosphères” and “Lux aeterna” became the iconic soundtrack to Stanley Kubrick’s masterpiece “2001: A Space Odyssey” in the 1960s. To mark the start of the festival, the Konzerthaus will screen the cult science-fiction film on the big screen, accompanied by the film score performed live by the Konzerthaus Orchestra and sung by the RIAS Chamber Choir.