Michael Rotschopf

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.