Music Programme September to November

Not All Travellers Walk Roads—Of Humanity as Practice. 36th Bienal de São Paulo, Berlin Edition
Ray Lema Quintet
Friday, 11.9.2026, 20:30
Miriam Makeba Auditorium
free entry

Ray Lema is a true master of musical lightness, elegance, and delight. Trained on the organ at a Catholic seminary in his early teens, he dabbled in the guitar while studying at university in Kinshasa, but his instrument of vocation ultimately became the piano. He explored this instrument across a wide range of colours and temperatures—from the classical repertoire to samba, afrobeat, and jazz.

Born in the westernmost part of Congo but later forced into a period of exile for over thirty years (in Washington, Brussels, and finally Paris), the sounds of his native country never left his heart. Lema continues to incorporate Congolese rhythmic techniques into his piano playing, adapting the sebene routine—the typical phrasing of the Congolese rumba that forms the base for dancing and musical trance. Many years into his international career, he enjoys a unique position: Lema’s music remains hugely accessible thanks
to its apparent simplicity, while his originality transcends the boundaries of genre norms.

The concert takes place as part of the opening of Not All Travellers Walk Roads—Of Humanity as Practice. 36th Bienal de São Paulo, Berlin Edition.

A Felasophical Gathering
Santrofi, Berlin Afrobeat Company
Thu., 15.10.2026, 19:00
Miriam Makeba Auditorium
Tickets €24/€20

On 15 October every year, HKW celebrates the life and work of one of the
most important musicians of the twentieth century, Fela Kuti. The initiative’s
title, A Felasophical Gathering, alludes to the fact that Fela was not only a
musician, but also an activist, political being, and philosopher. The annual
gathering brings together musicians, scholars, activists, storytellers, and
other co-voyagers to unpack the Fela curriculum.

This year, Santrofi, a group of dedicated young musicians with a shared
love for the music they grew up with, highlife, is invited to honour Fela
Kuti's legacy. This supergroup from Accra combines a passion for vintage
highlife grooves with a hip hop sensibility.

The concert programme is opened by the Berlin Afrobeat Company (BAC),
founded in West Berlin in 1978 following a legendary performance by Fela
Kuti & Africa 70 at the Berlin Jazz Days. After that concert, many of the
ensemble’s most important members decided to stay in Berlin. The BAC
consists of a group of international musicians based in Berlin who are
dedicated to preserving and developing Fela Kuti’s music through live
shows and various initiatives.

Cantadoras
Sofia Jernberg
Tuesday, 27.10.2026, 20:00
Safi Faye Hall
Admission €20
Tickets via Deutsche Oper Berlin

Soprano, performer, and composer Sofia Jernberg moves between
contemporary composition, noise, free jazz, and experimental vocal art.
Her voice ranges five octaves, from guttural growls to crystalline overtones,
from microtonal glissandi to percussive sonic explosions.

What can a voice be? Ritual, resistance, myth, and knowledge keeper?
Visionary, memory, and healing? The Deutsche Oper’s series
Cantadoras brings together outstanding women who radically pose this
question, each in their own way, tradition and practice. Various vocal
techniques meet Improvisation and performance, spiritual practice meets
political resistance, centuries-old traditions meet progressive sonic art.

A cooperation with Deutsche Oper Berlin

A Tribute to Hermeto Pascoal
Andromeda Mega Express Orchestra together with ‘Hermeto’s
Mothership’ feat. Mariana Zwarg
Wednesday, 11.11.2026, 20:00
Miriam Makeba Auditorium
Tickets €28/€16

To honour the great avant-garde musician, multi-instrumentalist, and
composer Hermeto Pascoal, the Berlin-based Andromeda Mega Express
Orchestra, led by Daniel Glatzel, teams up with his long-time band Nave
Mae for a tribute concert. Nave Mae, ‘Hermeto’s Mothership’, formed by
Itibere Zwarg, Fabio Pascoal, Andre Marques, Ajurina Zwarg, and Jota P.,
consists of the musicians who shared the stage with Hermeto Pascoal
across the world for decades, until his passing in 2025. Joining them is
Mariana Zwarg, a flutist, Hermeto’s goddaughter, and daughter of Itibere,
carrying the music forward from within the family to which it belongs.

Since its founding, the Andromeda Mega Express Orchestra has combined
a wide variety of musical styles, schools, and cultures. The orchestra
currently performs in constellations involving up to twelve musicians from
eight different nations. The evening honours one of Brazil’s foremost
musicians and a body of work that continues to surprise, move, and
liberate. The Mothership, as Hermeto Pascoal always said, was built to
keep flying.

In cooperation with Andromeda Mega Express Orchestra
Supported by the Capital Cultural Fund

Contact

Maxie Fischer

Head of Press and Communications
Haus der Kulturen der Welt (HKW)
John-Foster-Dulles-Allee 10
10557 Berlin

T: + 49 (0) 30 397 87 157
presse@hkw.de