HafenSounds | SOMMER KÖLN

In the organizer's words:

🎶 HafenSounds - Choral festival at the Chocolate Museum
📅 Saturday, July 12, 2025 | 🕑 from 2 p.m. until approx. 9 p.m.
📍 S quare in front of the Chocolate Museum

Between the city's different worlds of sound, the voice is a unifying element - diverse, lively, moving.

Around ten choirs from Cologne and the surrounding area bring the Rheinauhafen to life. Whether pop classics, movie hits or world music: here, people sing with heart, dedication and a lot of vocal power. A day that shows how lively and multifaceted the region's vocal culture is.

➡️ You can find the detailed program for both days of Hafensound below!

🌍 HafenSounds - Global Music at the Chocolate Museum
📅 Sunday, July 13, 2025 | 🕑 from 2 pm until approx. 9:30 pm
📍 S quare in front of the Chocolate Museum

The second day of HafenSounds will be colorful and boundless: Cologne's international music scene shows what it can do. A creative energy is bubbling up in all districts of the city and the surrounding area, and it will take to the stage at the Chocolate Museum - and send us on a musical journey around the world without us having to leave the Rheinauhafen. Sometimes danceable, sometimes profound, always surprising: this sound journey brings together highlights from the global sound scene.

➡️ You can find the detailed program for both days of Hafensound below!

☀️ This event is part of SOMMER KÖLN 2025 - organized in cooperation with the SK Stiftung Kultur and the City of Cologne.
All information and the complete program at: www.sommer.koeln

HafenSounds - Choral Festival at the Chocolate Museum - Saturday, July 12, 2025

2 p.m., St. Stephen's Youth Choir
The Cologne Youth Choir has been one of the most successful of its generation in Germany for four decades. Its repertoire is as colorful as its appearance, ranging from pop and gospel to Cologne songs. Unforgettable performances include the G8 summit appearance with Bill Clinton in Cologne City Hall in 1999, viral videos of the spontaneous concert in Hamburg's Elbtunnel and projects with artists such as Carolin Kebekus and Kraftklub.

14:45, Michel Kokott & Choirs
Michael Kokott brings together his numerous Cologne choirs for an intergenerational project. With heart and dedication, he presents a colorful mix of music ranging from pop hits to Cologne songs. Singing along is expressly encouraged.

3:30 pm, Film music choir
Here comes great cinema for the ears: Under the direction of Denise Weltken, around 40 film fans and vocal prodigies of all ages and walks of life sing. In polyphonic choral arrangements, the singers bring cinematic scenes and images back to life with emotional power. Anyone who loves live soundtracks should not miss the film music choir.

4:10 pm, Lucky Kids
The children's choir has been delighting audiences with cheerful and cheeky songs for over 25 years. With great musicality, the young singers from the Rheinische Musikschule under the direction of Michael Kokott even reached the final of RTL's "Supertalent" this year. Another highlight is their gold and platinum award-winning contribution to the Unheilig chart hit "Geboren um zu leben". Have fun with the young talents.

16:50, De Vive Voix choir
The De Vive Voix choir brings French joie de vivre to the stage in a good mood and with the joy of singing francophone chansons. The native French and German speakers present classics of the genre: from Barbara to Georges Brassens and Yves Montand to Benjamin Biolay and many more.

5:30 pm, Klangfang
The Klangfang choir has been delighting audiences since 2012 with creative arrangements, often written by the choir directors themselves. The choir and choir management decide democratically what else to play, so that concert programs are primarily shaped by the preferences of the current members. For Klangfang, the focus is on having fun at rehearsals and performances. Let yourself be carried away by a capella with sophistication and variety!

18:10, Aynur 3K women's choir
The women's choir brings timbres from all over the world to the stage, uniting cultures and people. They sing in German, Turkish, Polish, Greek, Japanese and various Balkan languages. After successful performances in the Cologne Philharmonic Hall and at the Christmas market at the cathedral, the choir now wants to build bridges between different cultures on the square in front of the Chocolate Museum.

7:15 pm, The heirs
Singing - boundless and versatile, a cappella or with a band, with lots of fun, passion and a dose of self-irony: that's DIE ERBEN - around 60 singers aged between 20 and 50 under the direction of Eike Leipprand. With sophisticated choral arrangements from pop, jazz and rock, works of classical literature and, of course, Kölsche Tön, the choir creates a varied program.

20:15, Choir of the TH Köln
Founded as a small musical university project in 1999, the TH Köln choir is constantly growing. Students and alumni, employees and friends of TH Köln bring a repertoire to the stage that is just as diverse as they are: well-known choral classics, modern pop pieces and the occasional foray into classical music. Mostly a capella - always with enthusiasm - they also sing in Polish, Turkish or Kölschen Tön.

9 pm, Turkish Chaimber Choir
The choir is made up of men and women, young and young at heart, who share their love of singing. The diverse repertoire consists of compositions by the founder and choir director Betin Güneş, traditional Turkish songs and classical choral literature. Impressive voices that you should not miss when they perform here in Cologne.

HafenSounds - Global Music at the Chocolate Museum - Saturday July 13, 2025

14:15 Welcome

14:20, Cantus Portugueses - Portugal
The Cantus Portugueses ensemble brings together students and graduates of the Cologne University of Music and Dance who are dedicated to the regional cultures of Portugal and the Portuguese-speaking world. At our festival, they will interpret traditional fados and revolutionary folk songs in a quartet formation. Their expressive voices and the delicate sounds of the Guitarra Portuguesa and other stringed instruments are sure to delight: Rita Rolo Morais and Joana Santos: Vocals; João Martins and Adriana Rolão: Guitarras.

3:15 pm, Astare Artner Ensemble - Dersim
Cologne-based artist Astare Artner makes spiritual music in the ancient Iranian language Zazaki. Her own compositions are inspired by centuries-old mystical motifs from the Dersim region. Together with Nurullah Turgut (percussion) and Sedar Tunc (bass guitar), she accompanies her singing on the tembur, a plucked long-necked lute with three strings. Astare's songs are about nature and the source of existence, love. The root forces of earth, water, air and fire play a central role.

16:00, Nuro & Mustafa - Kurdish (walking act)
Govend is the name of the super energetic Kurdish dance music that no wedding should be without. It will be played by Nurola Turgut & Mustafa Sahin on "Def û Zirne", a dubious cylinder drum and an oriental funnel oboe, which some also know as zurna and davul, in Turkish this wedding music is called halay. It is not known exactly where it comes from, but it connects very different cultures in the Near and Middle East.

16:20, Turlitava Band - North Macedonia
Turlitava is a traditional, spicy Balkan stew that symbolizes the diversity and spice of the Macedonian band. Mustafa Zekirov (vocals & strings), Enis Ibraimovski (vocals & percussion) and Adji Hazir (bass guitar) present the musical melting pot of the former Yugoslavia - in particular Macedonian folk, pop and rock classics, from Goran Bregovic to Šaban Bajramović and Cigani Ivanovici, interpreted in their rousing way.

17:10, Escola de Frevo - Brazilian (walking act)
Master percussionist Alfonso Garrido and trumpet teacher Jan Schneider have formed a furious Brazilian brass band with students from the Cologne University of Music and Dance that plays pernambuco frevo. This north-east Brazilian carnival music combines Prussian marching music, Parisian cancan and African polyrhythms to create a very lively dance music that characterizes the carnival parades in Recife and Olinda in particular.

17:45, Tomé Tivane - Mozambique
The young singer-songwriter Tomé Tivane from Cologne knows how to create a fascinating, almost trance-like groove with his voice and gentle guitar chords. As an autodidact, he has created his very own style from regional traditions (including Zulu) and international influences. Tomé sings mainly in Mozambican Portuguese. In Cologne, he has performed at rallies such as the large "Black Lives Matter" demo.

18:30, El Caimán - Colombia
There is a growing cumbia scene in Cologne and the surrounding area, which is surrendering to the charm of the irresistible Colombian dance music. In Colombia and large parts of Latin America there are numerous sub-forms, El Caimán from Cologne-Bonn master the particularly energetic, Afro-Colombian variant with large drums, gaita (bamboo flute), maraca and vocals.

19:10, Escola de Frevo - Brazilian (walking act)
Master percussionist Alfonso Garrido and trumpet teacher Jan Schneider have formed a furious Brazilian brass band with students from the Cologne University of Music and Dance that plays pernambuco frevo. This north-east Brazilian carnival music combines Prussian marching music, Parisian cancan and African polyrhythms to create a very lively dance music that characterizes the carnival parades in Recife and Olinda in particular.

20:00, Milaa - Germany/Congo/Angola
The German singer and rapper with Angolan and Congolese roots mixes Afrobeats, R&B, reggae, hip-hop and house to create her very own melange. Cosmo Radio writes: "The summer hit "Feel it" by Milaa and the producer duo Cupido from Wuppertal sounds as sweet as ice cream and groovy as hell. The rapper and singer has what it takes to be a star." Milaa's live band are: Pathé - drums, Flo - bass, André - guitar and Maxi - keys.