The National Concert Hall has announced new one-off concerts, Change The World, re-imagining Bertolt Brecht’s songs and poems for 2019.

The concerts, scheduled for Saturday, September 14 and Sunday, September 15, are part of the NCH Perspectives Series. Specially produced by NCH's Gary Sheehan and Musical Director Terry Edwards, Change The World sees renowned artists Ute Lemper, Einstürzende Neubauten’s Blixa Bargeld, Meow Meow, Camille O’Sullivan and Gavin Friday reinterpret and perform the poems and songs of Bertolt Brecht.

In a time of social and economic turbulence, hedonism, cultural creativity, and a threatened democracy in the face of nationalism, racism and populism, the German writer's songs and his remarkable poems still resonate today. They propelled him to become one of the most potent and rebellious humanist voices of his time.

Praised for her interpretations of Berlin Cabaret Songs, Olivier Award-winning singer and actress Ute Lemper has made her mark on stage, in films, in concert and as a unique recording artist. She is also renowned for her portrayals in musicals and plays on Broadway, in Paris, Berlin and in London’s West End and is an award-winning interpreter of Brecht.

Blixa Bargeld is the founder the seminal Berlin band Einstürzende Neubauten and played guitar in The Bad Seeds, the band he founded in West Berlin in 1984, together with Nick Cave, Mick Harvey and Barry Adamson. Bargeld now works across multiple art forms as a singer, narrator, actor, director and author, musician, poet and experimenter.

Post-post-modern diva Meow Meow has hypnotised, inspired, and terrified audiences globally with unique creations and sell-out seasons from New York’s Lincoln Centre and Berlin’s Bar Jeder Vernunft to London’s West End and the Sydney Opera House. Her award-winning solo works have been curated by David Bowie, Pina Bausch and Mikhail Baryshnikov.

Since appearing with the Virgin Prunes in 1977, Gavin Friday has enjoyed an eclectic career spanning four decades. Gavin’s 2001 show, the Kurt Weill tribute Ich Liebe Dich, juxtaposed 1920s/30s Berlin and 1940s Broadway, and had a sell-out run at the Dublin Theatre Festival. In 2005, director Neil Jordan cast him as the sexually ambiguous rocker Billy Hatchet in Breakfast on Pluto. His most recent album is the critically acclaimed, Catholic.

Camille O'Sullivan enjoys a formidable international reputation for her unique dramatic interpretations of the narrative songs of Nick Cave, Brel, Waits, Bowie, Radiohead, and Arcade Fire. Her solo shows include Sydney Opera House, London’s Royal Festival Hall and The Roundhouse. Recently Camille starred in Edinburgh International Festival and won a prestigious Herald Angel Award for her tour de force, solo performance in the Royal Shakespeare Company’s Rape of Lucrece.

Tickets go on sale this Monday, July 1, at 10am. See the National Concert Hall website for more information.