What the press says

… the listener was tempted to listen to the overtones that Matthias Bauer elicited from his double bass in the crazy solo number Theraps. This happened at the middle concert of the three-day Xenakis Festival, which the ensemble unitedberlin organized in the St. Elisabeth Church, on the 100th birthday of the master, commonly known as κύριος. This middle concert was the strongest, not only because of the virtuoso solo and duo performances of the violinist Emmanuelle Bernard, the cellist Lea Rahel Bader or the clarinetist Matthias Badczong on the edges of the concert, but also because of the larger ensemble works Phlegra and Waarg by 1975 and 1988, which Vladimir Jurowski conducted at the center of the evening. (Albrecht Selge)

This is contemporary soloist music. Star conductor Jurowski directs a well-tuned chamber ensemble, whose 15 members shine in the many solo passages. The well-earned applause is also theirs. (Sybill Mahlke)

I will report to Makhi how impressed I have been by this weekend which has set a new standard for Xenakis performances. You have established him in Berlin as a classic and Hayrabetian echoed exactly the same feeling. It has been a revelation and for me personally a vindication of my youthful conviction and efforts to get Xenakis understood and appreciated. – Nouritza Matossian

Perhaps the greatest compliment that can be paid to all those involved without exception – including those not mentioned here by name – is to point out the tremendous standard of the interpretations: Literally from the first to the last minute of this original birthday party, the excitement continued.
After four well-attended to very well-attended concerts, you had the feeling that you had experienced a lot over the hours and learnt some new things, but still felt a certain regret that the event was already over. You can’t really expect more impact from such an endeavour. (Stefan Drees)

100 ticking metronomes: this is how the ensemble unitedberlin’s 4 concerts in 7 hours on György Ligeti in the Elisabethkirche in Berlin-Mitte began. When experienced live, the ‘Poème Symphonique for 100 metronomes’ is much more than a joke! You watch the instruments, which even seem to have little heads with their two little screws as eyes and look at you sadly, mesmerised, even moved. One by one, they fall silent and freeze…

Later, the brilliant Yoriko Ikeya ventured into some of Ligeti’s hellishly heavenly piano etudes, which were juxtaposed here with Conlon Nancarrow’s ‘Studies for Player Piano’.

It was a varied, entertaining and instructive Sunday. A well thought-out, well-rounded event. (Albrecht Selge)

A live, multimedia radio play for orchestra, a soprano and a narrator who perform texts by Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Edith Thomas and Paul Eluard, among others. They deal with the dream of resistance, hope, despair, fear and the courage to overcome them. The sung and read texts, the music played with classical instruments, the electronically created sounds, even scraps of sound, form a fascinating unity in all their disruption, rhythmic, complex, losing themselves in sound colours and condensing.
Stop Killing Us, Our Life Matters, can be read in the video film on posters that are held up by individuals in a crowd. Until the two women at the front of the stage raise their voices in favour of Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s lines about the ‘turning point of the times’. The theologian wrote them in prison a year before he was murdered by the Nazis. ‘The dream of resistance’ – full of evocative power. (Barbara Wiegand)

‘Energeia’ is the title of ensemble unitedberlin’s performance in the “NDR das neue werk” series, and that’s exactly what gripped the few listeners in the Elbphilharmonie’s Small Hall from the very first bar: raw, inescapable, rousing energy.

For ‘Rebonds B’ from 1988, percussionist Juris Āzers performs an archaic dance. The power and precise looseness with which he lets the timbers, bongos, tomtom and bass drum almost collide with each other create their own choreography. … Escape is impossible.

In contrast, ‘Waarg’ for 13 instruments seems almost orchestral. After the razor-sharp auditory impressions of the smaller works, the ear almost defends itself against what appears to be a tutti sound in comparison, but of course is not. There are still 13 soloists at work, making music together as if from one breath, without allowing themselves to be disturbed by the hair-raisingly intricate rhythms.

ensemble unitedberlin’s recent production in the X3 Festival of Iannis Xenakis’s Oresteïa, in collaboration with Musicatreize, the Berlin Vocalconsort, the Staats- und Domchor Berlin, expertly conducted by Roland Hayrabedian, was one of the finest performances of this milestone I have ever experienced. The minimalist scenography signed by Anisha Bondy and Anne Hölzinger really captured the essence of the work and transformed the iconic St. Elisabeth Church into the perfect vessel to transmit the timely message of the birth of democracy to the public today. The love and engagement of all the musicians were palpable and contagious and the audience left the venue completely transformed. Such devotion really pleas for repeat performances throughout Europe if not the whole world! – Sharon Kanach