A concert design project realised by the Master’s degree programmes in Stage Design and Architectural Space and Architecture at the Technical University of Berlin, in collaboration with the Stegreif Orchester Berlin
In collaboration with the Stegreif Orchester – an improvisational symphony orchestra from Berlin – TU students created a musical journey through time on the city’s most mysterious mountain, taking the form of a concert trail and a collective experience. The SKY CONCERTS, held in the former Cold War field station – now a street art gallery – are being created under the direction of lecturer Franziska Ritter with 18 students from the Master’s programmes in Stage Design and Architectural Space and Architecture at the Technical University of Berlin. Working in interdisciplinary teams, these young emerging designers are developing and realising a concert production for the various stations, featuring light and sound installations, media projections, choreography, costumes and educational formats to create an immersive experience for the audience.
Four musical venues create a walking concert
In small groups, the audience roams the mountain for three and a half hours, from sound station to sound station, through spaces that have been silent for decades. Between the Street Art Gallery and the cathedral-like reverberation of the domes of the former listening post, chamber music ensembles appear unexpectedly. What is heard cannot be reproduced – it emerges from the place, in the moment, with this audience.
At the various locations, excerpts from Richard Strauss’s Metamorphosen, György Ligeti’s Six Bagatelles, Carlo Domeniconi’s Koyunbaba and Alfred Schnittke’s Silent Music are performed, reworked, improvised and staged with an individual creative touch. For the evening’s joint finale, all the groups will come together in the former Teufelsberg canteen for the ‘feel:free’ concert, featuring the orchestra’s full line-up.
Dates: 4 showing, 09.–12. August 2026
Place: Field Station Teufelsberg, Teufelsseechaussee 10, 14193 Berlin
The 5 projects
Each of the four sound stations, as well as the guided tour for the audience through the entire concert route, was conceived and designed by a dedicated team of students – from the spatial installation, lighting, sound and costumes right through to the dramaturgy of the guided tour.
„Koyunbaba” Carlo Domeniconi – Beatgarten
Koyunbaba (“Father of the Sheep”) takes its name from a 15th-century Turkish saint and mystic who, according to tradition, lived as a shepherd and was distinguished by his profound piety. ‘Koyunbaba’ is also the name of a region on the Aegean coast of Turkey. Domeniconi composed his Guitar Suite, Op. 19, inspired by this landscape: sunshine, tranquillity, vastness and a slowly building intensity that unfolds across four movements – from a dreamlike opening to a rousing, driving finale. The many variations on the origin story of this legendary work inspired the team at Beatgarten to create an introductory sound and video installation that brings aspects of religiosity, the forces of nature and the sacred to life.
Music & development: Michael Riemer
Scenography: Joy Dourmashkin, Luise Krüger, Hanna Kritten Tangsoo
Ash Vectors – Verbrennerraum
“Silence is the darkness of music; darkness is the silence of fire; ash is the data of silence.” Building on this conceptual framework, the performance transforms the historic incineration chamber on the Teufelsberg into an archaic model of language: where words once intercepted were burned, the installation reflects the workings of today’s data centres and AI systems – the processing of language and meaning. In a choreography of programmed lighting and 4-channel surround sound, performer David Fernández acts as a human link whilst playing the cello. Drawing on Schnittke’s *Stille Musik*, he translates the sonic ruins of the espionage station into an immersive experience – an artistic meditation on surveillance, the culture of remembrance and the silencing of language. The performance utilises darkness, fog, strobe effects and loud sounds.
Development & Performance: David Fernández
Scenography: Sophie Leypold, Ayman El-Sakrane
„Metamorphosen” Richard Strauss – Galery
The title Metamorphosen refers to the continuous transformation of the quotation from Beethoven’s Eroica Funeral March, which is only revealed at the end. Originally conceived as a septet for strings and later expanded into a work for 23 solo strings, the ageing Strauss composed the music in 1945, inspired by the cultural sites destroyed during the war – which he saw as the downfall of Western high culture. As a tribute to Viennese Classicism, he conceived Metamorphosen as an intimate memorial and lament for the destroyed city of Dresden and the masters of German music. The student team at the gallery explores, through music and performance, the (critical) engagement with tradition and history, the culture of remembrance, the yearning for freedom, questions about an uncertain future, and the courage to embrace change.
Scenography: Parnian Naiieri, Eva Patramani, Steffen Suhr, Fatemeh Heidari, Arthur Lopes Capelo de Matos
Development / Music Direction: Sebastian Caspar
„Sechs Bagatellen” György Ligeti – Kuppel
Ligeti’s Six Bagatelles draw on phrases from his piano composition Musica ricercata and are regarded as a milestone in modern wind chamber music. Composed in 1953 under Hungary’s restrictive Stalinist regime, they reflect an intellectual emancipation: Ligeti gradually moved from minimal musical material towards complex chromaticism. Musically, the wind quintet is characterised by sharp rhythmic asymmetries, Hungarian folk metre and explosive dynamics; at its core lies a tension between sparkling wit and deep trauma. The team stages the radar dome as an ambivalent space of perception, in which seeing and hearing, observing and eavesdropping intertwine, and translates Ligeti’s compositional processes into a visual interplay of dialogue, echo, convergence and resolution.
Scenography: Luise Körber, Anna Lena Höink, Anna Mattea Iverec, Sophia Schrölkamp, Alicia Quigley, Lorenz Willkomm
Musical direction: Helena Montag
Hosting – the concert parcours
Between the four sound stations, ‘hosts’ guide the audience across the sprawling grounds of the Teufelsberg: through the iconic domes of the former listening post, past room installations, and on to ever-changing perspectives on a place steeped in history. The concept for this guided tour choreographs the entire concert route both dramaturgically and spatially, thus forming the central theme of the evening.
Concept for guided tours: Sepideh Yekehbash, Somayeh Ahemeh
Hosts: Lorina Strange, Somayeh Ahemeh, Maya, Lea Hladka, Franziska Ritter, Gineke Pranger, Sarah Ströbele, Nick, Loris
Team
Artistic Lead: Lorenz Blaumer, Sebastian Caspar
Project Lead: Lea Hladka
Musical Direction: Sebastian Caspar, David Fernández, Helena Montag, Michael Riemer, Franziska Aller
Scenography TU Berlin: Franziska Ritter (as tutor)
Light design feel:free: Arnaud Poumarat
Fotos: Stegreif – Frederik Ferschke, Osveh Heidari, Sophia Schölkamp, Franziska Ritter