Art possesses the magic to penetrate the secrets of the soul, to evoke and express emotions,
to dive into the sphere of the Unspeakable – the Spoken – the Unsayable, to listen to the question, "What determines our lives?" and to send light into the depths of the human heart.

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From January 23 to 25, 2026, the Sorbisches Museum Bautzen once again became a place of intense artistic encounter. Under the motto “From Brecht to Broadway,” the third edition of WinterKlassik traced a wide arc between origin and departure, memory and new beginnings, homeland and exile.

The three concert formats – “Echo of Wandering Souls,” “Between Silence and Sound,” and the matinee “Exile and Identity” – guided audiences along musical paths shaped by migration, political upheaval, and cultural exchange. Music was not merely sound, but a narrative force: it connected language, memory, and inner resonance.

At the center stood works and artistic personalities such as Antonín Dvořák, Kurt Weill, Erich Wolfgang Korngold, and George Gershwin—composers whose music emerged from movement and transformation and continues to mediate between worlds to this day.

A particular highlight was the world premiere of a commissioned work by Jan Cyž based on texts by the Sorbian hymn poet Jan Kilian. His “Sterbelied” united spiritual depth with consolation, making Sorbian history audible as part of a universal human theme.

The evenings were shaped by international musicians and enriched by two very different narrating voices: Walter Prettenhofer, originally from Austria, and Hanka Rjelka, deeply rooted in the Sorbian region. Between them unfolded a vivid scenic dialogue—between German and Sorbian language, between music and word, between memory and the present. Many of these moments were immediate and affecting—they invited us to follow, to reflect, to pause.

WinterKlassik thrives on shared listening—on moments in which music and word meet and set something within us in motion. That this space opened once more to the very last row during the matinee was particularly moving for us.

I am very much looking forward to continuing this journey and am pleased to announce the next WinterKlassik from January 29 to 31, 2027.

We look forward to welcoming you.

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Franziska Pietsch
Festival Director