Come and hear!

Concerts & projcets

In Kronberg stars of today make music with stars of tomorrow; leading contemporary artists give performances with outstanding next-generation musicians. The concerts, public tuition sessions and public rehearsals all provide opportunities for audiences to become stakeholders in these great musical moments. Get close to music and the artists!

Current event

Carl Bechstein Saal, Casals Forum
2026/2027 Kronberg Festival - K28
Progressive strings
BartolomeyBittmann

Participants

  • BartolomeyBittmann

Programme

Following the huge success of their latest award-winning album *z e h n* (German Record Critics’ Award),
BartolomeyBittmann focus their new program
“Best of BB” on the essence of their compositional work to date.
In the four programs created since then, the original compositions of
this progressive duo are characterized by strong emotional contrasts:
Meridian (2013) — finding a connecting thread, a musical path.
Neubau (2015) — the idea of creation through collaborative composition.
Dynamo (2019) — the dramatic element in music and performance.
z e h n (2022) — continuity and the embodiment of a philosophy.
The musical range of “Best of BB” extends from powerful rock riffs
and virtuosic, racing unison passages to intimate grooves and sensitive
melodic lines. The focus is always on the search for the acoustic
foundation of their classical instruments.
Matthias Bartolomey - cello
Klemens Bittmann - violin & mandola
www.bartolomeybittmann.at

 

Subject to change

Tickets
35 / 45 €
Großer Saal, Casals Forum
2026/2027 Kronberg Festival - K13
NEW WORLD
Berlin Academy of American Music, Fenyő, Keast, Martin

Participants

  • Mihaela Martin violin
  • László Fenyő cello
  • Berlin Academy of American Music
  • Garrett Keast director

Programme

Aaron Copland (1900–1990)
An Outdoor Overture

Leonard Bernstein (1918–1990)
Serenade after Plato’s “Symposium”

INTERMISSION

Anna Clyne (*1980)
Shorthand

George Gershwin (1898–1937)
An American in Paris

 

Subject to change

Tickets
35 / 45 / 65 €
Verschiedene Orte in Kronberg, Casals Forum
2026/2027 CMK öffentlicher Unterricht
Öffentliche Cello Meisterkurse
Frans Helmerson, Gary Hoffman, Jens Peter Maintz, Wolfgang Emanuel Schmidt, Ildikó Szabó

Participants

  • Ildikó Szabó cello
  • Frans Helmerson cello
  • Gary Hoffman cello
  • Jens Peter Maintz cello
  • Wolfgang Emanuel Schmidt cello

Programme

Five artistic personalities – five perspectives, five approaches, five paths to music.

Where is the spark that sets everything alight? It is found where great artists inspire young talents and pass on their knowledge and experience. Every two years, Kronberg Academy invites cello students from around the world to the “World Capital of the Cello” (Mstislav Rostropovich). Over the course of almost a week, they receive valuable inspiration and guidance from five distinguished teachers in public masterclasses. This year, we are delighted to welcome Marie-Elisabeth Hecker, Frans Helmerson, Gary Hoffman, Jens Peter Maintz and Wolfgang Emanuel Schmidt.

For interested visitors, the public masterclasses offer a unique opportunity to explore even the most hidden corners of the cello repertoire.

 

Day ticket for the public masterclasses: €12
Valid for all masterclasses on one day; free admission for young people and students under the age of 27.

 

The detailed class schedule will be announced at short notice.

Venues: Casals Forum, Stadthalle, Galerie Opper

 

Programme subject to change.

Tickets
12 €
Carl Bechstein Saal, Casals Forum
2026/2027 Kronberg Festival Rahmenprogramm
"BIATHLON-CHALLENGE - STEP BY STEP INTO COURAGE"
Workshop with Prof. Dr. Jana Leidenfrost Psychologin und ehemalige DDR-Ski-Meisterin

Participants

  • Prof. Dr. Jana Leidenfrost
  • Ehemalige DDR-Ski-Meisterin

Programme

On stage, courage matters just as much as it does in elite sport. Participants in the Cello Masterclasses will learn how courage, mental strength and perseverance can be trained — and how they can be applied purposefully in everyday artistic life. The connection between sport and music opens up new perspectives on inner strength and stage presence.

 

The lecture will be held in English and is intended for participants in the Cello Masterclasses as well as interested visitors.

 

Subject to change.

Tickets
Free Entry
Großer Saal, Casals Forum
2026/2027 Kronberg Festival - K14
ERZÄHLUNGEN
Duval, Genisson, Han, Isserlis, Shih, Soulez-Lariviére

Participants

  • Pierre Génisson clarinet
  • Irène Duval violin
  • Sào Soulez Larivière viola
  • Steven Isserlis cello
  • Anna Han piano
  • Connie Shih piano

Programme

Ludwig van Beethoven (1770–1827)
Piano Trio-B-Dur  Op. 12 “Gassenhauer”, Cello Sonata in C major, Op. 102 No. 1

Robert Schumann (1810–1856)
Three Romances, Op. 94

INTERMISSION

Robert Schumann (1810–1856)
Fairy Tales, Op. 132

Gabriel Fauré (1845–1924)
Trio in D minor, Op. 120

 

Concert introduction at 6:45 p.m. with Dr. Norbert Gertsch (G. Henle Verlag)

Subject to change

Tickets
35 / 45 / 65 €
Verschiedene Orte in Kronberg, Casals Forum
2026/2027 CMK öffentlicher Unterricht
Öffentliche Cello Meisterkurse
Frans Helmerson, Gary Hoffman, Jens Peter Maintz, Wolfgang Emanuel Schmidt, Ildikó Szabó

Participants

  • Ildikó Szabó cello
  • Frans Helmerson cello
  • Gary Hoffman cello
  • Jens Peter Maintz cello
  • Wolfgang Emanuel Schmidt cello

Programme

Five artistic personalities – five perspectives, five approaches, five paths to music.

Where is the spark that sets everything alight? It is found where great artists inspire young talents and pass on their knowledge and experience. Every two years, Kronberg Academy invites cello students from around the world to the “World Capital of the Cello” (Mstislav Rostropovich). Over the course of almost a week, they receive valuable inspiration and guidance from five distinguished teachers in public masterclasses. This year, we are delighted to welcome Marie-Elisabeth Hecker, Frans Helmerson, Gary Hoffman, Jens Peter Maintz and Wolfgang Emanuel Schmidt.

For interested visitors, the public masterclasses offer a unique opportunity to explore even the most hidden corners of the cello repertoire.

 

Day ticket for the public masterclasses: €12
Valid for all masterclasses on one day; free admission for young people and students under the age of 27.

 

The detailed class schedule will be announced at short notice.

Venues: Casals Forum, Stadthalle, Galerie Opper

 

Programme subject to change.

Tickets
12 €
Feldbergsaal, City hall
2026/2027 Kronberg Festival Rahmenprogramm
VORTRAG: HAYDNS CELLOKONZERTE
Dr. Norbert Gertsch

Participants

  • Dr. Norbert Gertsch

Programme

Haydn’s Cello Concertos – A Challenge Not Only for the Performers

Haydn’s masterpieces for cello and orchestra present challenges not only for the musicians on stage. For centuries, scholars and editors have grappled with fundamental questions: How often has Haydn’s famous name been exploited for forgeries? And how reliable is the surviving musical text—are we really hearing what Haydn intended?

Join us in the search for possible answers.

 

The lecture will be presented in English.

 

Programme subject to change.

Tickets
Free Entry
Großer Saal, Casals Forum
2026/2027 Kronberg Festival Rahmenprogramm
LÖWENHERZ - Erzähl mir von Courage
Reading with actor Michael Rotschopf

Participants

  • Oliver Herbert cello
  • Michael Rotschopf

Programme

Michael Rotschopf reads. Oliver Herbert plays the cello. Together, they conjure an hour of words and music about the courage to be oneself.

Walt Whitman, Oscar Wilde, Thomas Mann, Natalia Ginzburg, Dawn Avery, Iannis Xenakis and Pablo Casals – their voices, along with others, come together in an unusual literary and musical collage.

It is about rebellion and freedom, temptation and resistance – and about the question of when courage changes our lives. And whether sometimes we first have to go looking for it, only to discover that it has been there all along.

An afternoon for everyone who loves great writing and music, and who is open to bold and daring ideas.

Michael Rotschopf is an actor – and an exceptional interpreter of the spoken word. Trained at the Max Reinhardt Seminar, he was engaged by Vienna’s Burgtheater while still a student. He has worked with directors such as Peter Stein, appeared at the Berliner Ensemble, the Salzburg Festival and the Staatsoper Unter den Linden, and is also well known from film and television. For many years, Michael Rotschopf has also been in demand as a narrator and speaker in concerts, radio plays and audiobooks. Among other appearances, he performed at Carnegie Hall in Bernd Alois Zimmermann’s Requiem for a Young Poet.

Oliver Herbert is a cellist who has recently completed his studies at the Kronberg Academy. The American musician is a recipient of the 2021 Avery Fisher Career Grant and has appeared as a soloist with orchestras including the San Francisco Symphony and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. He has a particular interest in contemporary music and in bringing familiar works into dialogue with newer, lesser-known repertoire.

 

Subject to change.

Tickets
10 €
Großen Saal, Casals Forum
2026/2027 Kronberg Festival - K15
ILLUMINATION
Bendix-Balgley, Ensemble Resonanz, Minasi, Prohaska

Participants

  • Anna Prohaska soprano
  • Noah Bendix-Balgley violin
  • Ensemble Resonanz
  • Riccardo Minasi director

Programme

Benjamin Britten (1913–1976)
Les Illuminations, Op. 18

Edward Elgar (1857–1934)
Elegy

Wolfgang A. Mozart (1756–1791)
Concerto No. 4 in D major, K. 218

 

Subject to change

Großer Saal, Casals Forum
2026/2027 Kronberg Festival - K16
SCHICKSAL
Altstaedt, Ensemble Resonanz, Minasi

Participants

  • Nicolas Altstaedt cello
  • Ensemble Resonanz
  • Riccardo Minasi director

Programme

Camille Saint-Saëns (1835–1921)
Concerto No. 1 in A minor, Op. 33

Ludwig van Beethoven (1770–1827)
Symphony No. 5 in C minor, Op. 67

 

Subject to change