The moving atmosphere reached into the second balcony of Boston Symphony Hall. Two elite orchestras from Germany and the US have come together to create and perform music as one under their joint principal conductor, Andris Nelsons. And on Oct. 31, the audience is celebrating this thrilling apogee of Leipzig Week in Boston with standing ovations.

Among those in attendance was German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier, as the concert comprising works …

Can trees grow out of houses? Are robots taking over? Are we done with globalization? At first glance, these three questions have nothing in common. If we take a closer look, however, we see a shared theme: the future.

At their core, the questions revolve around future scenarios of human life on planet Earth. How are we going to live in the future? And, more importantly, how do we want …

Johanna Röh is one of the very few women ever to take up the old German tradition of the Wanderjahre, a custom that involves spending several years traveling the world as a craftsperson Johanna Röh had a queasy feeling. Just moments before, her friends and relatives had carried her with pomp and circumstance past the sign marking the city limits of her home town of Kassel. Minutes later, she …

This summer, two major events caused a sensation in the world of soccer in Berlin and throughout the country. First up was the fact that 1. FC Union, the eternal second-division club from the eastern Berlin district of Köpenick, finally made it to the Bundesliga, thus becoming the second Berlin team in the league’s top tier. The citywide celebrations surrounding the ascent of the “Unioners” were almost as euphoric as …

ROBUST

There are typically two types of political books that aim to sketch the big picture of the state of the West. The elder statesmen version is full of sweeping generalities – calls for open dialogue, robust diplomatic efforts and a well-intentioned reminder of the common values we all share. The second type is usually written by a foreign policy specialist, and spills over with an abundance of detailed knowledge …

For seven long years, there was nothing I feared more than the annual inspections carried out by members of the Schöneberg-Friedenau Association of Allotment Gardeners. As far as I’m concerned, these inspectors are nothing more than a terror squad masquerading as two seasoned garden pros who summer after summer are intent on examining every corner of our 240-square-meter lot in the Tulpenteich garden colony in southern Berlin. Although the inspections …

The best news from the Bundesliga, Germany’s top-tier soccer league, is that it looks like there will finally be a real battle for the championship this season. Yet only two teams have greater than an outside chance to vie for the title: FC Bayern Munich and Borussia Dortmund (BVB).

In the past seven years, the league has been dominated by that perpetually number-one team, Bayern Munich, even though they finished …

Germans used to be undisputed leaders in the global export of goods, and they’ve been world champions several times in soccer. In each case, whenever they noticed that their own skills weren’t going to be enough, they simply procured foreign muscle to get the job done. In the 20th century, they brought in “guest workers” from Italy, Greece and Turkey to accomplish their “economic miracle,” and in the 21st century, …

For an Englishman the wrong side of 50, it was an adventure that seemed to tick a lot of boxes. The European Cycling Federation had just declared its latest long-distance Euro Velo route open: EV13, tracing the 9,000-km path of the former Iron Curtain all the way from the Arctic tip of Norway down to the Bulgarian shore of the Black Sea. To a child of the Cold War, reared …

I love New York,” gushes Katharine Mehrling. The top star of Berlin’s musical stage is coming to Manhattan on Oct. 5, hoping to conquer the Big Apple with her enchanting sound. The award-winning singer and actor will perform her “Streets of Berlin” act at Joe’s Pub – a bow to her chosen hometown from the American metropolis that’s stolen her heart.

“Over the course of the evening, I say a …