Spark 11 | Music by Debussy und Köhler | Discussion: "Beauty is truth, truth beauty"?

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CONCERT 18-19h

SooJin Anjou, piano
Cicely Parnas, cello

Claude Debussy            Sonata for cello and piano (1915)

Wolfgang Köhler           Jazz Sonata for cello and piano (2022)*

                                           *world premiere

DISCUSSION 19.15 - 20.15h

"Beauty is truth, truth beauty"?

In times of uncertainty, imagination is easily lost to urgency. Yet it is precisely now that we must ask: what lies beyond the immediate, and how can beauty help us see it? 

Many scientists and mathematicians have expressed the view that the hallmark of a correct solution is elegance and beauty. G.H. Hardy wrote in A Mathematician’s Apology (1940):“Beauty is the first test; there is no permanent place in the world for ugly mathematics.” Physicist Paul Dirac asserted “It is more important to have beauty in one’s equations than to have them fit experiment.”

Meanwhile, artists of all disciplines –– music, visual arts, dance –– have, throughout the centuries, wrestled with questions of proportion, form and structure, which are mathematical concepts at heart.

As we look “beyond now” with Berlin Science Week 2025, we invite bold ideas that transcend disciplines. Can beauty become a language of science? Can science, in turn, be a source of beauty and hope?

With Cicely Parnas, Wolfgang Köhler, Georg Braune, Stefanie Grosswendt

Hosted by SooJin Anjou and Dr. Nikolaus Rajewsky 

Pianist SooJin Anjou enjoys an astonishingly varied international career as soloist, chamber musician and partner in diverse interdisciplinary projects. Born in South Korea, she was educated in the United States, Hungary and Germany.  She graduated from the Juilliard School as the only person in its history to win both of Juilliard’s undergraduate commencement prizes, for achievement and leadership in music and the liberal arts. While still a student, she was prominently featured in Asahi-TV’s documentary “New York, New Yorkers” , which was televised in many parts of Asia and released on DVD.  

SooJin Anjou is an avid performer of contemporary music, and composers have been entrusting their work to her since she was 15. She has premiered works by, among others, Valentin Silvestrov, Elena Kats-Chernin and David Del Tredici.  Her world-premiere recording of the complete piano works of electronic music legend Morton Subotnick was released to great acclaim, eliciting such praise as “magical and beguiling” (Wire Magazine, London).

As soloist, she made her Boston Symphony Orchestra debut at  age 16 with Prokofiev's 3rd Piano Concerto. She is a laureate of the Robert Schumann International Piano Competition (Zwickau, Germany) and the Orléans International Piano Competition (France).   Her broad repertoire includes more than 40 concertos, ranging from Bach to Berio, as well as the complete works of Ravel.

Cicely Parnas is a Berlin-based American musician who has established an international reputation as a cellist, arranger, composer, and teacher. Born in 1993, Cicely showed a passion for music from an early age and quickly became known as a prodigious talent in the classical music world. Some of the most notable performances of her career have taken place in iconic concert halls, including the Kennedy Center and Carnegie Hall. She has soloed with the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, The New York String Orchestra Seminar, Charleston Symphony, and many more. 

A keen arranger and composer, Cicely has adapted an array of pieces for various ensembles, including a collection of nine Arias for Cello and Piano in collaboration with the Brooklyn Duo. Currently, she is composing a four-movement work for solo cello, commissioned by the great cellist Jennifer Kloetzel as a part of Kloetzel’s project “Mission: Bach”.

Cicely began The Commission Project in 2012, engaging such composers as Arsentiy Kharitonov, Jocelyn Hagen, Gabriel Gutierrez, and Chris Beroes-Haigis. In 2023, Cicely ran a successful crowd-funding campaign to record “Spoken in Waves” by Beroes-Haigis for cello and string quartet; in 2026, an expansion of the project will culminate in a recorded album of his music.

Wolfgang Köhler was born in 1960 in Hofgeismar. The internationally renowned jazz pianist and composer has collaborated with such musicians and orchestras as the Berlin Philharmonic, the RIAS Big Band, the NDR Big Band, Till Brönner, Herb Geller, Benny Bailey, Lou Blackburn, John Marshall, Judy Niemack, Jiggs Whigham, and Ack van Rooyen. His compositions have been published by Schott Verlag. Since 1999, he has headed the piano department at the prestigious Jazz Institute Berlin (part of the University of the Arts Berlin/Hochschule für Musik Hanns Eisler).

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