crescendo - music festival of the UdK Berlin

The crescendo music festival will take place from 23 May to 6 June 2025.

crescendo 2025: InnenSaiten

Music speaks to our innermost being. Much of our subconscious is particularly stimulated by it. In the fast pace of our everyday lives, the external and the visual often seem to dominate. There is less and less time and space for music. Nevertheless, it is precisely through sound that we find access to the depths of human existence.

The fact that this enormous significance of music for the inner life of human beings is being pushed more and more into the background has not only been evident since the Berlin Senate's blatant cuts to culture and science. This year, the UdK Berlin is celebrating its 50th anniversary and for the first time its existence, it is under threat.

Music nourishes our soul through vibrations. When we sing, our vocal chords vibrate and the music makes its way from within to be released to the outside world. The strings of the guitar, harp and string instrument also move the air molecules, send us musical messages with their invisible sound waves and thus set our innermost being, our soul, into vibration. At crescendo2025, we therefore speak of InnenSaiten, which translates to inner strings and refers to the various vibrations music produces.

We invite you to return to your inner self together at crescendo2025 and set an example for the immense importance of music and culture, especially in times of crisis. The program will touch on the work of various French composers such as Louise Farrenc, Maurice Ravel, Erik Satie and Pierre Boulez and Mélanie Bonis. Compositions of Clara Schumann, Robert Schumann and Franz Schubert will be presented as well. The opening concert with the UdK Berlin Symphony Orchestra under Giovanni Antonini will feature Beethoven's Eroica, Joseph Haydn's Sinfonia concertante and Fanny Hensel's Overture in C major. The masterclass by Marco Tamayo, our professor of guitar, will explore the incredible range of this string instrument. The changing history of our university in its 50 years of existence will be explored in the closing concert: Music as a bridge builder and signpost against the racism and anti-Semitism of the latest political developments.

We will also retain the tried and tested: As every year, students and lecturers often work side by side across institutes and faculties to design the programs and all events are free to attend.

Once again, we are expressing the fact that music is not a luxury good, but makes an indispensable contribution to the continued existence and further development of society on a scientific, psychological and interpersonal level.

Let us explore your and our InnenSaiten together. We look forward to seeing you!

Your Artistic Directors

Prof. Markus Groh
Prof. Konstantin Heidrich