Diversity of Voices III
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| Access to the exhibition areas at a special price of 9 EUR / reduced 0 EUR |
| For people of all ages |
| Humboldt Forum |
Voices, halls, sounds, cultural belongings: nine choirs from Berlin encounter the spectacular rooms and collections from around the world at the Humboldt Forum with their songs. Classical, jazzy-pop, queer and feminist ensembles alternate in short concerts throughout the building with Arabic, Bulgarian, African and Latin American songs.
The highlight of the festival is the joint singing of all choirs in the Grand Foyer – repeated four times. More than 200 voices create an unforgettable experience in the extraordinary architecture of the foyer. Visitors who enjoy singing have the opportunity to try their hand at music in open workshops in the Mechanical Arena.
The choirs
Founded in 1904 as the ‘Berliner Volks-Chor’ (Berlin People’s Choir), the Berliner Oratorien-Chor has been performing choral symphonic works for over 120 years. Collaborations, guest performances and regular performances at the Berlin Philharmonic Hall shape the concert calendar. Between 1958 and 2008, the choir established itself in Berlin’s musical life under the direction of Gert Sell and was honoured with the Zelter Plaque in 2004 for its cultivation of choral music. Thomas Hennig has been artistic director since 2008. Under his leadership, innovative programmes are created, characterised by a diverse combination of secular and sacred music, new works, including world premieres, and well-known older oratorios, masses and choral symphonies.
The choir currently consists of around 80 active members, representing a wide range of generations and professional backgrounds.
Bulgarian Voices Berlin is an international women’s ensemble that combines the primal power of traditional Bulgarian folk singing with contemporary performance practices. Under the direction of Boryana Velichkova, the choir has been bringing together singers of various nationalities since 2009. The choir takes its audience on an emotional journey through all regions of Bulgaria: from the humorous, dissonant duets of the west to the melancholy of the Rhodope Mountains and the complex ornamentation of the Black Sea coast. With captivating rhythms and powerful melodies, the music touches the soul and provides palpable energy.
The Bulgarian Voices have performed at the Berlin Philharmonic and the Elbphilharmonie Hamburg. International tours, prizes at prestigious competitions, and the release of several albums of their own underscore the ensemble’s success and cement its reputation as a leading vocal ensemble that masterfully translates Bulgaria’s rich singing tradition into the modern age.
The Coro Contrapunto, led by Catalina Restrepo Amaya, was founded in Berlin in 2008 and is still led by her today. It is an a cappella choir with an international line-up. Many of the approximately 30 singers come from Latin America or have lived there for a while. Catalina Restrepo Amaya is from Colombia and has lived in Berlin since 2004. Coro Contrapunto gives regular concerts in Berlin and internationally, in churches, concert halls and social institutions.
The choir’s repertoire is wide-ranging and includes contemporary and traditional pieces from Latin America as well as arrangements of classical music.
The Joliba Friendship Choir is based in Kreuzberg and is part of the Joliba Interkulturelles Netzwerk in Berlin e.V., an association that works with Afro-German and African families. Since 2021, the choir has been led by Djatou Touré (Ivory Coast), who shares her musical experience in a practical way.
The choir singers come from four continents. With its African song repertoire, the Joliba Friendship Choir creates musical meeting places where cultural diversity can be experienced and mutual understanding promoted.
The focus is on communicating African musical traditions. The choir currently sings in more than a dozen languages, including Bambara, Zulu, Swahili, Ewe and Mandinka. It learns in the traditional African way, by ear and through repetition, without sheet music.
The Joliba Friendship Choir sees itself as a bridge between cultures and a place of exchange, friendship and encounter.
The Pet Shop Bears choir emerged in 2014 from the queer party series of the same name that took place in the Berghain canteen. The a cappella ensemble, which now has 25 members, combines different musical traditions: its repertoire includes classical works for male choir from the Renaissance to the present day, as well as specially arranged cover versions of songs by artists such as Björk, Kate Bush, Grace Jones, Freddie Mercury, Joe Jackson and Rufus Wainwright. In addition, the Pet Shop Bears regularly collaborate with musician friends, giving concerts with US singer-songwriter Jon Campbell, Canadian indie pop band The Hidden Cameras and, most recently, Hamburg accordionist Bernd Butz. Traditionally, the choir spends the Whitsun weekend in the Piedmontese village of Colma di Valduggia; the final concert now attracts audiences from across the region. Since 2024, the Pet Shop Bears choir has been directed by Christian Höffling.
The Singing Shinks are the only choir in the world consisting exclusively of psychiatrists, psychologists and neurologists – and have been for over 25 years. Whether in village churches, at Berlin’s TIPI am Kanzleramt alongside Eckart von Hirschhausen, or at the Waldbühne for ‘Halleluja Berlin’ with Rainald Grebe – the Singing Shrinks embody the emotional and psychological power of choral music.
During the day, they care for people in mental crises. In the evenings, they draw on their repertoire of songs from the 1920s to pop songs by Die Ärzte, Rosenstolz and The Beatles. For most of them, singing is one thing above all else: therapy from therapy. Because they know one thing for sure: singing is healthy for the body and soul. It activates positive emotions, regulates stress hormones and promotes social connectedness.
Siren is a feminist choir from Berlin that sees its music as a means of resistance, solidarity, and social change. Founded out of an urgent need to draw attention to the ongoing violence against women and girls, Siren raises its voice where it is all too often ignored.
The ensemble, consisting of six professionally trained singers, sees itself as a protest choir. At the heart of the choir’s work is the collective voice as an expression of resistance, solidarity, and hope. Siren uses music to make the strength, vulnerability, and resilience of women audible—loud, polyphonic, and unmistakable.
Siren presented its first release on March 8, 2025, International Women’s Day, with a premiere on YouTube. The choir’s performances and projects often take place in the context of feminist action days, especially around the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women on November 25.
We are a choir of around 25 singers and see ourselves primarily as a pop choir. However, our repertoire is characterised above all by its great stylistic diversity. Regardless of the genre or origin of the pieces, we sing with high musical quality and a palpable love of rhythm, melody and harmony. Our arrangements and interpretations have thrilled and inspired our audiences on many occasions. Since 2015, the choir has been led by the passionate choir director Ilja Panzer.
We sing in many voices, poetically, emotionally and dramatically, with a love of unusual harmonies and moving lyrics. Authentic expression and closeness to our audience are particularly important to us, and we invite them to join us on this musical journey and even sing along. A cappella, authentic and extraordinary: the Berlin choir Spirited stands for swinging and precise pop melodies. Familiar songs sound new with us – unfamiliar ones become a listening experience.
The Women in Harmony choir, which emerged from the Arabische Musik Initiative Berlin e.V. (Arab Music Initiative Berlin), is now an important part of Berlin’s vibrant Arabic music scene. The choir brings together women from diverse backgrounds who express their personal stories of migration, culture, and identity through music. Their singing encompasses the entire Arabic repertoire—from classical maqamat to contemporary songs—and combines traditional ornamentation with polyphonic choral singing.
More than that, however, the choir is a space for empowerment, self-confidence, and community, where women support each other and thus also grow artistically. Through concerts, collaborations, and festivals, they act as cultural ambassadors, connecting Arab musical heritage with Berlin’s diverse cultural life. The Women in Harmony Choir is therefore not only sound, but also an expression of female voices that resonate and build cultural bridges.
Short biographies
The singer, choir director and arranger Anna-Lena Bolz studied singing in the jazz/rock/pop program at the Carl Maria von Weber University of Music in Dresden. During her studies, she was part of the folk band Miss O’Paque as a singer and songwriter and worked together with guitarist and composer Freya Arde. In 2015, the band released their debut album The Small Things.
In 2012, Anna-Lena Bolz took over the management of the OFFTRACKS Festival in Dresden, which brings music to unusual places and combines it with different art genres such as dance, painting, theater and film. After moving to Berlin, she founded the Feature Chor Berlin in 2018, with which she has already performed with Alice Phoebe Lou in front of a sold-out Funkhaus and in Berlin’s Columbiahalle. In 2023, she performed with the choir at the Kammermusiksaal Berlin with other choirs as part of the Berlin Choir Association’s Sunday concert series.
Since 2022, Anna-Lena and her colleagues have been organizing and curating the be kind festival in the brewhouse of the Alte Berliner Kindl brewery, which is dedicated to contemporary music in the Berlin scene. In her work, Anna-Lena Bolz is committed to empowering structures and also sees music as an important space for thinking and experimentation for social interaction.
Kaspar von Erffa studied acting and directing at the Salzburg ‘Mozarteum’ and was assistant director at the Burgtheater Vienna, working with Jürgen Flimm, Peter Zadek and Claus Peymann, among others. He has been a freelance director and screenwriter since 1996. In 2008 he founded the Höfische Festspiele Potsdam, in 2016 the Integration Theater of the University of Potsdam. He has directed the Inselbühne Potsdam since 2021. He is a tenor and has been singing in the choir for 44 years.
Like Anna-Lena Bolz, Hannah Ginsburg also studied singing and vocal pedagogy jazz/rock/pop at the Carl Maria von Weber University of Music in Dresden. She lived out her passion for singing for over 10 years as a member of the Wortart Ensemble, with whom she performed and gave workshops throughout Germany. The Wortart Ensemble has won prizes at numerous renowned competitions and stands for individual, unique a cappella singing.
In 2012, Hannah Ginsburg founded the singing school SING DICH GLÜCKLICH, where she pursues her passion for music as a singing teacher and educator and combines it with her organizational skills. She has completed further training in the Lichtenberger® Method and ESTILL Voice Training®. In her teaching activities, Hannah Ginsburg benefits from her many years of experience as an actress in front of the camera (ZDF, RTL, Arte) and on stage (e.g. Volksbühne Berlin), which above all characterizes her work with language and acting and significantly expands her teaching skills.
In addition to her work at SING DICH GLÜCKLICH, Hannah Ginsburg is a much sought-after lecturer, for example at the Belcantare Brandenburg project, which is dedicated to promoting singing in children, at the Cantarale youth choir meeting in Brandenburg/Havel and at the Federal Association of Music Teaching in Brandenburg.Program Overview for Saturday, April 18, 2026
Johanna Brüll (she/her) is a choir conductor equally at home in classical, jazz, and pop music. She earned her master’s degree in choral conducting from the Hanns Eisler Academy of Music in Berlin and further developed her skills through the B-course training in jazz and pop choral conducting at the Federal Academy for Cultural Education in Wolfenbüttel.
In April 2025, she assisted Justin Doyle and the RIAS Chamber Choir as well as the Konzerthausorchester Berlin. She gained formative insights through masterclasses with Anne Kohler, María Guinand, Daniel Reuss, Stefan Parkmann, and Justin Doyle.
As a freelance conductor, she currently leads Unität, Berlin’s largest student pop choir, works at the SING DICH GLÜCKLICH vocal school, and is the founder and artistic director of the FLINTA* ensemble JASSA. In September 2025, she took over as music director of the Berlin jazz/pop choir zimmmt.
Johanna Brüll is committed to making feminist themes tangible through performative concert formats and integrating classical music into contemporary contexts. In her artistic collaborations, she values flat hierarchies, gender-sensitive language, and respectful communication.
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