The Pierre Boulez Saal will now be led by a dual leadership team. Kirsten Dawes and Kurt Danner will assume interim management, according to a statement released on Friday. The duo succeeds Ole Bækhøj, who moved to the Daniel Barenboim Foundation in March as artistic director and managing director. The Dane had been artistic director of the concert hall, which opened in 2017, since 2015.

Ole Bækhøj, Kirsten Dawes, Kurt Danner

Dawes, originally from South Africa, has been responsible for the artistic planning of the hall from its inception. Previously, she worked in the education department of the Berlin Philharmonic, the Young German Philharmonic, and the German Chamber Philharmonic Bremen. Danner was born in Linz on the Danube and has headed the marketing and sales department of the Boulez Hall since 2019. He held the same position with the Vienna Symphony Orchestra from 2009 to 2016.

"It's a strong sign that we were able to fill these positions from within our own team," explained conductor and pianist Daniel Barenboim. The chamber music hall, named after the French composer Pierre Boulez (1925-2016), seats 622 and was designed by architect Frank Gehry. It is part of the Barenboim-Said Academy for young musicians from the Middle East, which opened at the end of 2016.

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