Anniversary concert with the Brandenburg State Orchestra Frankfurt (BSOF) under the direction of Wilhelm Keitel

On 26.11.2025 at 7:00 p.m., the musician, composer, arranger and producer Sven Helbig, who was born and grew up in Eisenhüttenstadt, is coming to the Friedrich-Wolf-Theater for a home performance. Together with the BSOF, he will perform his orchestral work Pocket Symphonies.

The Pocket Symphonies are 12 miniatures for orchestra, musical walks, none longer than 5 minutes. Since their first release in 2013, the pieces in this cycle have been regarded as symphonic gems, packaged as songs – short, catchy and yet with the power and depth of great classical symphonies. Composer Sven Helbig has thus achieved a very organic symbiosis of classical orchestral music and the popular music form.

Sven Helbig began playing the clarinet and guitar at an early age, and later the drums. He moved from Eisenhüttenstadt to New York to study, co-founded the Dresden Symphony Orchestra, composed contemporary choral, orchestral and chamber music works and arranged for Rammstein, Pet Shop Boys, Snoop Dogg, Sido and Polarkreis 18, among others. Sven Helbig belongs to a younger generation of composers for whom the boundaries between the classical orchestral world, experimental art and pop music no longer exist. He is a border crosser between styles. Sven Helbig presents the weekly radio program Schöne Töne on Radio Eins. Most recently, he composed Requiem A, the concert commemorating the Dresden bombing 80 years ago in the Dresden Kreuzkirche.

It was Sven Helbig's own suggestion to perform the Pocket Symphonies at the Friedrich-Wolf-Theater for its 70th anniversary together with the Brandenburg State Orchestra Frankfurt (BSOF) under the direction of Wilhelm Keitel. Sven Helbig still feels a strong connection to Eisenhüttenstadt. One of the pieces in the Pocket Symphonies is dedicated to his home town and bears its name. Sven Helbig even wrote a large part of the work in Eisenhüttenstadt. In an interview with Deutschlandfunk Kultur, he says: "I really like being there (note: in Eisenhüttenstadt). I wrote most of Pocket Symphonies there too, in my parents' attic. Yes, because I wanted to expose myself to it again, to an old environment that used to be intense and important and where everything had its origins."

When and where?

Wednesday, November 26, 2025 | 7:00 p.m. 
Friedrich-Wolf-Theater, Lindenallee 23, 15890 Eisenhüttenstadt