Hamburg’s Elbphilharmonie will mark its 5th anniversary tomorrow with a gala concert, part of a nine-day festival celebrating the hall's impact on the city.

Over the past five years, 3.3 million attendees have watched concerts at the Elbphilharmonie, while 14.5 million have visited its Plaza viewing platform overlooking Hamburg's skyline. Overall, the venue says that Hamburg’s concert audience – when also taking into account the city’s Laeiszhalle – has trebled since the dramatic Herzog & de Meuron-designed building opened in 2017.

Tomorrow’s concert will see the resident NDR Elbphilharmonie Orchestra and its chief conductor Alan Gilbert perform an all-contemporary programme of music by John Adams, Esa-Pekka Salonen and Thomas Adès – the latter’s Piano Concerto being performed by its dedicatee Kirill Gerstein. It will be streamed live, and available to watch on catch up, at the following link: elbphilharmonie.de Other artists appearing in the nine-day festival include Sir Simon Rattle, Daniel Barenboim and Jordi Savall.

Meanwhile, the architecture of the venue itself will be celebrated by a light instillation by Dutch artist duo Drift, developed in cooperation with the Museum for Arts and Crafts Hamburg, MK&G. Entitled ‘Breaking Waves’, hundreds of illuminated drones will fly above the River Elbe, choreographed to Thomas Adès’s Piano Concerto, bringing the façade of the concert hall to life. ‘Breaking Waves’ will be performed from 28 April to 1 May 2022, launching the 2022 Hamburg International Music Festival.