CANCELLED: Tribute to Helmut Zacharias' Hamburg Years
The concert programme of the Elbphilharmonie and the Laeiszhalle cannot go ahead as planned due to the impact of the coronavirus pandemic. This event has had to be cancelled – it will not be rescheduled on an alternative date. Under the following link you can request a refund of your ticket price or expressly forgo the refund in support of the cultural scene: Information on ticket refunds and waiving refunds for cancelled events
The »Magic Violinist« Helmut Zacharias was born in Berlin in 1920 and first performed a Mozart violin concerto on the radio at the age of eleven. His great love, however, was not classical music, but the swing music so frowned upon by the National Socialists. The first record under his own name was released on Odeon in 1941. He went on to write 450 compositions and 1,400 arrangements over the course of a long career. After the war, Zacharias initially played with Coco Schumann in Berlin; in 1948 he moved to Hamburg, where he played with the Nordwestdeutscher Rundfunk and gained widespread recognition in the jazz world. He was awarded the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany in 1985. A memorial concert at the Elbphilharmonie featuring well-known artists and young musicians is dedicated to the Hamburg period of the violinist, whose lightness never toppled into kitsch and whose impact extended well beyond contemporary easy listening.
At the »Elbjazz« festival the Hamburg harbour is the backdrop for a unique music event: since 2010 thousands of guests have been thrilled by one of the largest European jazz festivals where the unmistakable maritime flair of the Hanseatic city of Hamburg meets spectacular venues and musical diversity. The concerts and the colourful supporting programme of the festival take place at changing locations north and south of the Elbe river – and for the fourth time in a row at the Elbphilharmonie in 2020.