Karoline Bestehorn studied in Berlin at the Hanns Eisler Academy of Music with Stephan Picard and Michael Vogler. The prize-winner of national competitions was a scholarship holder at the Orchestra Academy of the Deutsche Oper Berlin.

Sitting on stage at a concert, getting goosebumps and feeling how the audience experiences and feels these special moods.

I like to spend the time just before the concert with my colleagues and friends in our women’s tuning room. It’s a wonderful place where we laugh a lot, cry sometimes and in any case talk more than you could imagine. One is pregnant, one is going to be a grandmother, the next has a child who is going through puberty, another has relationship stress, another again has forgotten her locker key and is hektically asking around for fitting concert clothes… It’s chaotic, but we all draw so much strength from this liveliness!

Brahms, Mahler, Bach.

Fortunately, there are many concerts that I remember so fondly! But since I am spoilt for choice, I’d have to choose the “St. Matthew Passion” with Iván Fischer. At the time, during a rehearsal, he said that the story was already so old, but we had to bring all the emotionality onto the stage and into the here and now. He wasn’t concerned with how it was performed historically, but wanted a truly authentic musical experience. For me, this concert was an emotional shock and I didn’t want it to end.