Chamber concert Ballhaus Wedding

100 years of radio – 100 years of jazz

In 2023, radio in Germany will celebrate its 100th birthday – and with it the Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester Berlin, whose members Rodrigo Bauzá and Oliver Link have come up with the programme for the concert at Ballhaus Wedding. 1923 was also the year of the first record by King Oliver’s Creole Jazz Band, on which trumpeter Joe “King” Oliver can be heard together with Louis Armstrong for the first time. Last but not least, the legendary saxophonist Dexter Gordon would also have turned 100 in 2023. The concert programme pays tribute to the two jazz giants in arrangements by Rodrigo Bauzá for saxophone/clarinet, violin, guitar and double bass.

Ballrooms have had a great time in Berlin. Without the plush dance halls, the Golden Twenties would probably not have become the cult brand that it is today, and which even had an impact on the founding years of radio. The RSB opens up two of Berlin’s lovingly maintained ballrooms for selected chamber concerts: the Ballhaus Wedding and the Ballhaus Neukölln, today’s “Heimathafen”.

Both mark stations on an imaginary line between the orchestra’s two radio houses during its 100-year history: the Haus des Rundfunks in Charlottenburg and the Funkhaus Nalepastraße in Oberschöneweide.