Listen twice

Are you afraid of New Music? We invite you to overcome your fear of contact with New Music at the 2× hören (Listen Twice) series of events.

Unusual, entertaining and informative – and without pedagogical finger-pointing – we create novel ways for you to access new works of classical music. The experienced and likeable music mediator Rafael Rennicke takes you by the hand and guides you through the evenings.

Dare. be inquisitive and rely entirely on your senses at the Körber Forum.

In Berlin, Salzburg, Frankfurt, Munich, Luxembourg, Bonn, at the Mecklenburg-Vorpommern Festival and at Schloss Elmau: At many concert venues, events are sometimes announced under the title 2× hören (Listen Twice). This refers to a series of events that was founded in 2006 at the Körber Forum in Hamburg. Their concept is very simple: at 2× hören, a musical work is played twice – before and after a discussion between the presenter and the artists. But 2× hören is not only a sequence, it is also a concept: “Knowledge must pass through the ear,” is how co-founder Markus Fein described the meaningful mediation of music. It is particularly strong “when it turns on the synapse roundabout and risks comparisons with other arts.”

Since 2021, the series has been hosted by Dr Rafael Rennicke, who holds a doctorate in musicology and works as music editor at the cultural radio station SWR2 in Baden-Baden.