Half-remembered German folk songs and the music of a Berlin childhood flicker again and again in the songs of composer Ruth Schönthal, born in 1924. First celebrated as a child prodigy in her home country in the 1930s, the 14-year-old had to flee from the National Socialists. She ended up in the USA via detours, where she developed her very own style as a successful composer - between European musical tradition, folk music and American modernism. Her rarely heard songs are the focus of the program “Berlin im Licht” by soprano Mengqi Zhang and pianist Marlene Heiß. Combined with cabaret songs by other composers expelled from Berlin, such as Kurt Weill and Hanns Eisler, they revolve around questions of belonging and (not) arriving, balancing between pain and lightness, seriousness and playfulness - to which, incidentally, shot glasses and light bulbs also contribute by changing the sound of the piano.