Intonations – International Chamber Music Festival Berlin 2026

Berlin's Only Annual Chamber Music Festival

Berlin boasts a rich classical music scene – with the Philharmonie, Staatsoper, Konzerthaus, and Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester. However, dedicated chamber music festivals are surprisingly few. Intonations, founded in 2012 by pianist Elena Bashkirova, has since established itself as 'the only annual chamber music festival of its kind in Berlin' – a sister format to the Jerusalem International Chamber Music Festival (JICMF), also led by Bashkirova.

Elena Bashkirova's Programming Philosophy

Pianist Elena Bashkirova is one of the most distinguished chamber musicians of her generation and is married to Daniel Barenboim – which gives her Berlin festival a special connection to the Staatsoper Unter den Linden and the Barenboim-Said Akademie. Programmatically, she views chamber music not as courtly culture, but as a collaborative experiment: For each work, she assembles an ensemble individually, combining established stars with emerging talents. A 'school of encounter' that presents the audience with new constellations at every concert.

KühlhausBerlin – Industrial Architecture as a Concert Space

For years, the venue has been the Cube Hall in KühlhausBerlin, a structure built in 1901 as part of what was then the world's largest cold storage complex. The steel-and-concrete industrial architecture at Gleisdreieck (Friedrichshain-Kreuzberg district) provides a charming contrast to classical chamber music: no gilded halls, no stucco – instead, raw materiality, excellent acoustics, and an intense atmosphere. This is precisely what gives Intonations its unique signature.

Soloists 2026

The lineup for 2026 reads like an international who's who of classical music's elite: Martha Argerich (pianist, one of the most significant of the current generation), François Leleux (oboe), Emmanuel Pahud (flute, principal flutist of the Berlin Philharmonic), Karl-Heinz Steffens (clarinet and conductor), Dorothea Röschmann (soprano), Astrig Siranossian (cello), Nabil Shehata (double bass). The individual programs combine standard repertoire works with discoveries and commissioned pieces.