Image: Stadtgalerie, Kiel
The Schleswig-Holstein Music Festival will present its Hindemith Prize concert in Kiel on 12 August 2026, bringing together the Asasello Quartet and Trio ‘Pony Says’ for a programme of works by Paul Hindemith, Birke Bertelsmeier and Benjamin Scheuer. The concert is scheduled for 7:30 pm at the Kiel KulturForum in the Stadtgalerie, with free seating and tickets priced at €18.
The event centres on this year’s Hindemith Prize, which goes to Berlin composer Birke Bertelsmeier. According to the festival material, the jury is honouring her for her ‘artistic sovereignty’ and her ‘creative and reflective design competence’, qualities it says can also surprise and astonish. Bertelsmeier describes her music as seeking ‘a kind of energy arc’, stressing that it is rarely static and instead aims for vitality, movement, sensuality and emotional force without losing clarity.
The prize has been awarded since 1990 as part of the SHMF to outstanding contemporary composers. Festival material lists past recipients including Lera Auerbach, Thomas Adès and Jörg Widmann, situating Bertelsmeier within a line of internationally recognised figures. The festival’s framing also ties the award to Paul Hindemith’s own priorities as a composer and educator, rather than simply to repertory performance.
Hindemith’s name carries particular weight in this context because of his pedagogical interests as well as his position in 20th-century music. The festival points to ‘Plöner Musiktag’ as an example of his work explicitly addressing non-professionals and encouraging young people’s contact with contemporary music. That emphasis connects the prize to a broader idea of musical access and education, which remains embedded in the award’s identity.
Financial support for the prize and its musical presentation comes from the Hindemith Foundation in Blonay, Switzerland; the Rudolf and Erika Koch Foundation, the Walther and Käthe Busche Foundation and the Gerhard Trede Foundation in Hamburg; as well as the Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg and the state of Schleswig-Holstein. The festival notes that a programme booklet will be available for the concert, offered through a €3 booklet voucher purchased with tickets and exchanged at the venue.
The concert is part of the wider 2026 Schleswig-Holstein Music Festival season, which runs from 4 July to 30 August. In Kiel, the Hindemith Prize concert will be heard in the KulturForum in the Stadtgalerie on Wednesday, 12 August 2026, at 7:30 pm.
