Concert for Peace - Berlin University of the Arts

Mezzo-soprano Marina Prudenskaya studied in her home city of St. Petersburg. In 2003, she won first prize at the ARD Music Competition and subsequently developed a broad repertoire as a member of the ensemble at the Staatstheater Nürnberg, the Deutsche Oper Berlin and the Stuttgart Opera. She has been a member of the Staatsoper Unter den Linden ensemble since 2013. Marina Prudenskaya has performed at renowned opera houses and festivals worldwide, including the Royal Opera House Covent Garden (Azucena/Il trovatore), Teatro Real de Madrid, Palau de les Arts in Valencia, Opernhaus Zürich (Gertrud u. Hexe/Hänsel und Gretel), Teatro Municipal de Santiago de Chile, Hessische Staatstheater Wiesbaden (Preziosilla/La forza del destino), the Bavarian State Opera (Octavian/Der Rosenkavalier, 2016), Hamburg State Opera (Amneris/Aida), Nationaltheater Mannheim (Eboli/Don Carlo), Opera Vlaanderen Antwerpen (Lady Macbeth/Macbeth) and Washington National Opera as well as the Bayreuth Festival (Fricka/Walküre, Waltraute/Götterdämmerung) and the Festival d'Aix-en-Provence.

Artistic vision and tireless commitment to cultural policy: these are the qualities that have made the Los Angeles-born American-Israeli conductor Steven Sloane famous around the world. The former student of Eugene Ormandy, Franco Ferrara and Gary Bertini made his mark early on on festivals and opera houses such as the Spoleto Festival in Charleston and Opera North in Leeds. He has also worked as chief conductor of the American Composers Orchestra and the Stavanger Symphony Orchestra as well as Artistic Director for the European Capital of Culture year RUHR.2010.

From 1994 to 2021, Steven Sloane was General Music Director of the Bochum Symphony Orchestra, which became one of Germany's leading orchestras under his leadership. One of his greatest achievements was the realization of the orchestra's own concert hall, the Anneliese Brost Musikforum Ruhr, which was successfully opened in 2016. Other extraordinary successes of his work with the Bochum Symphony Orchestra include the exceptional production of Zimmermann's Die Soldaten at the Ruhrtriennale (2006) and at the New York Lincoln Center Festival (2008), the acclaimed Mahler/Ives cycle at the Philharmonie Essen, as well as numerous CD projects, including the complete recording of the orchestral works of Joseph Marx. He remains closely associated with the orchestra and the city of Bochum as an honorary conductor.

The Kammerchor der Künste Berlin is made up of around 25 music students from the Berlin University of the Arts, mainly prospective school and church musicians, vocal teachers and sound engineers, who make music together under the direction of Prof. Maike Bühle with a pronounced enthusiasm for detailed interpretations and a stylistically variable but always homogeneous choral sound. With concentration, dedication and passion, they unanimously work on their joint expression and try to surpass themselves in order to constantly refine their sound and get closer to the core of the compositions. The ensemble also performs and gives concerts outside Germany on concert tours.

In collaboration with the Tonmeister*In course at the UdK Berlin, a wide range of productions have already been created. There is also a close cooperation with the Department of Early Music at the UdK Berlin, where J. S. Bach's motet "Der Geist hilft unser Schwachheit auf" has already been worked on, performed and recorded.

As one of the leading university orchestras in Germany, the Symphony Orchestra of the Berlin University of the Arts enriches the capital's orchestral landscape with three to four concerts and an opera project every year. These include the traditional Concert for the Nations in the fall, a concert format that presents the internationality of the students of the Faculty of Music at the UdK Berlin in a festive setting and is held every year under the patronage of a Berlin-based ambassador. The opening concert of crescendo, the UdK Berlin music festival, is also usually performed by the UdK Berlin Symphony Orchestra. The orchestra also regularly performs chamber music with works from the 18th and early 19th centuries.