Matthias Ningel - Harmonie

Matthias Ningel, winner of the Lorscher Abt 2025 award, explores a grand theme in his fifth solo programme: harmony - in music and society. The ancient Greeks already had a bold idea: musical harmony and cosmic harmony rest on the same order.

Ningel develops this thought and asks how harmony stands in our present day. Why do contemporary times feel so out of sync? Isn't the pulse of our age more like a cardiac arrhythmia? And why can't these people who hate even sing or dance? From painful kidney stones, hidden tragedies beneath one's own laminate floor, to the omnipresence of screens in public space - through song, piano, synthesizer and various small instruments, he translates social phenomena into music.

Despite numerous awards in cabaret, Matthias Ningel, a music doctorate holder, also doesn't know how to fix the world. But as a musician and cabaret artist, he attempts to order the chaos until a coherent whole emerges. He draws musicality from things, turns words into drum grooves, and even manages to make the squealing asparagus peeler a solo instrument in the orchestra of worlds. Harmonie is universal musical cabaret for all generations and a love letter to music.