Founded by baritone Dietrich Henschel with pianist Sholto Kynoch, the LiedFest Berlin - Oxford is an annual musical event dedicated to promoting and sharing the art of Lied. Each year, we explore a different theme through a range of masterclasses, recitals, exhibitions and discussions.
Read on to learn more!
About the Festival
Beginnings
In 2021, the LiedFest Berlin-Oxford was launched; it emerged from the "International Lied Concerts Berlin," a series of radio concerts in collaboration with Deutschlandfunk Kultur. By linking it with the Oxford Lieder Festival, currently the world's largest festival of song, the focus was on internationalization and cultural exchange.
Recognizing the need for a music forum in Berlin dedicated to song, the idea of an international cooperation grew, for which the Festival Oxford Lieder, currently arguably the largest festival of song in the world, could be won as a partner.
In November of that year, five concerts took place in the Kühlhaus Berlin, which made its premises available as a further cooperation partner. Deutschlandfunk Kultur broadcast large parts of the program, and the project received further support from the UdK Berlin and the University of Oxford; two in-depth lectures by professors from Oxford and Berlin were held as part of the festival.
LiedFest 2022
The second full edition of the LiedFest - after the Open Doors Day held in the Kühlhaus at the beginning of April 2022, which met with enthusiastic approval from the audience as a promotional event for the LiedFest - revolved around the themes "From Daylight to Moonlight" and "Great Ballads" and in general explored "Musical Friendship".
The Festival was a comprehensive artistic expansion of the concert and lecture series was undertaken to include the levels of visualization, sound-space and virtual space. There were 5 concerts, one of which was a music theater production, a master class for Lied duos with its own final concert, 2 lectures and a children's concert.
LiedFest 2023
For the LiedFest 2023, the main theme of the program is Franz Schubert's song cycle "Die schöne Müllerin", in light of the 200th anniversary of its composition, alongside an exploration of the relationship between visual and musical arts.. A master class and an art workshop on the theme complement the festival program, which, in addition to Schubert's cycle, also addresses the topic of art in music - music in art.
