The concerts, scheduled for Saturday 14th and Sunday 15th of September as part of the NCH Perspectives Series, see renowned and significant artists - the dark star of cabaret Ute Lemper, Einstürzende Neubauten’s Blixa Bargeld, post-modern diva, Irish singer and actress Camille O’Sullivan and musical iconoclast Gavin Friday - reinterpret and perform the poems and songs of Bertolt Brecht.

From his sardonic tale of beggars, thieves and prostitutes in The Threepenny Opera to his anti-war play Mother Courage, songs with Kurt Weill and Hans Eisler, like The Ballad of Mack The Knife, and his remarkable poems of the pre-war period, the complex and controversial Brecht has created a canon of his own that speaks to 1930s Germany. In a time of social and economic turbulence, hedonism, cultural creativity, and a threatened democracy in the face of nationalism, racism and populism, Brecht’s songs and his remarkable poems still resonate today. They propelled him to become one of the most potent and rebellious humanist voices of his time.

A selection of Brecht poems and songs will be reinterpreted and set alight in this newly curated one-off concert, specially produced by NCH’s Gary Sheehan and Musical Director Terry Edwards.