feingeistmusik
Eberhard Martin Köhler
Founder & CEO
How the spirit of music came from Japan to Berlin...
Japan leaves an impression on you if you have lived there for more than 6 years. Especially if, like me, you started actively playing music at the age of 9 (clarinet) and added other instruments over the course of your life. Because Japan is by no means just the land of the rising sun, but the land of music, especially classical music.
Of course there are excellent musicians - but that could certainly be said about many countries. However, Japan's special richness in terms of music lies in its people and, in fact, its concert venues.
The typical audience doesn't just want to be entertained, but goes to a concert well prepared - knowledgeable about composers and works. And the choice of concerts is huge, because Japan invested a lot of money, especially in the economically golden age (80s and 90s), in the construction of excellent concert venues, which can be found in varying sizes in almost every town and city district.
But even more impressive are the countless small, sometimes tiny salons and cafés in which concerts are regularly held with passion and a lot of idealism.
With this memory in my luggage, I returned to Berlin in 2021, which also has an extensive range of large concert halls: 3 opera houses, the Philharmonie, the Konzerthaus am Gendarmenmarkt. However, there seemed to be only a rather limited number of small concert venues for chamber music. This is how the idea arose to create a small but sophisticated contribution to Berlin's cultural scene.