Entertainment

Ispasion Show Productions is a dance company known worldwide for its impressive creativity and graceful beauty. The main mission of the artists is to create unforgettable stage experiences that evoke emotions and captivate the audience.

Dance in its various forms is the central focus. Neo-Flamenco and Neo-Tango, Spanish and contemporary dance, as well as ballet, combine with cutting-edge stage technology and avant-garde visual effects to create a top-tier show.

The artists of the company are talented dancers with diverse backgrounds. They are admired not only for their flawless technique but also for their breathtaking interpretations and expressive stage presence.

The Berlin “Lenard Streicher Trio” emerges from the “Lenard Streicher Band” and presents its own and classic jazz, swing, rock'n'roll, boogie, rockabilly, easy-listening titles and evergreens from the 30s to the 60s. No eye stays dry, no glass stays empty and no leg stays still when the 3 gentlemen in fine clothing and in their prime perform all the stops of their skills - they easily switch between music, singing, conference, 
dance, comedy and slapstick. With the necessary dose of irony and a proper wink, the audience is included in the dynamic live performance when Lenard Streicher (vocals, guitar), Moe Jaksch (double bass, vocals) and Tobias Schiller (tenor saxophone, clarinet, vocals) bring the hall to a boil! In addition to their own compositions, there are also reminiscences of Elvis Presley, Carl Perkins, Jerry Lee 
Lewis, Louis Armstrong, Louis Prima and Dean Martin! In the last 15 years of their existence, 7 CDs were created and they gained a loyal fan base in Berlin, the surrounding area and all of Germany.

Ionel Adrian Iliescu (b. 1981 in Bucharest) completed his diploma at the Lübeck University of Music in 2006 under Professor Christiane Edinger and earned his concert exam degree in 2010 from the Hamburg University of Music with Professor Kolja Blacher. His chamber music education was shaped, among others, by Professor Walter Levin of the LaSalle Quartet. Iliescu is a prizewinner of numerous national and international competitions, including Jeunesse Musicale in Bucharest, the Kloster Schöntal competition (special prize), Città di Stresa, the Takasaki Competition in Japan, and the Furtwängler Prize in Lübeck (2006). He has taken part in masterclasses with Michele Auclair, Zakhar Bron, Ruggiero Ricci, and Donald Weilerstein. Concert engagements have taken him throughout Europe, South America, and Asia. As a soloist, he has performed with the Romanian Radio Orchestra, the Hamburg Symphony Orchestra, and the National Orchestra of Peru. He served as concertmaster of the Lübeck Philharmonic (2005–2009), the Stuttgart Chamber Orchestra (2009–2014), and as associate concertmaster of the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra (2015–2017). Since 2017, he has been the first concertmaster of the Hamburg Symphony Orchestra and regularly appears as guest concertmaster with the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, the Munich Philharmonic, and the Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin. Since 2018, Iliescu has been a member of the Bayreuth Festival Orchestra and joined the Lucerne Festival Orchestra in 2019.

Andra Heesch has established herself as an internationally renowned soloist and chamber musician. Her presence in world-famous concert halls such as Suntory Hall in Tokyo, Carnegie Hall in New York, and the Elbphilharmonie in Hamburg attests to her artistic radiance. She is a regular guest at festivals including the Schleswig-Holstein Music Festival, the Enescu Festival, and the D'Accord Klassikfestival. Her interpretations are marked by a synthesis of exquisite tonal aesthetics and musical eloquence that captivates both audiences and critics alike. A reviewer from critic-arad wrote: “Andra has the ability to charge a musical phrase with intense and sincere pathos, expressive power, and tension in a perfect flow, with bow and breath transitions merging almost imperceptibly.” Other reviews praise her “elegance, feminine energy, and nuanced versatility.” Chamber music lies at the heart of her artistic work. As a member of the Vitti Ensemble—a duo with Marketa Janoušková founded in 2022—she has recorded for Czech Radio and toured internationally. Since 2023, Heesch has been a permanent member of the Leipzig String Trio, which celebrated great success at the Martha Argerich Festival. She is also a founding member of the Nichiteanu Trio, reformed in 2022 with Ionel Adrian Iliescu and Samuel Selle. The ensemble is named in honor of Andra's father, who passed away in 2014. In 2024, Andra Heesch also joined the berlin.piano.quintet as its violist. She shares her knowledge through international masterclasses and serves as artistic director of the Kulturladen St. Georg in Hamburg. Andra completed her studies summa cum laude at the Hochschule für Musik und Theater Hamburg, further enriched by masterclasses with Tabea Zimmermann, Nobuko Imai, and Thomas Riebl. During her youth, she won several competitions. She performs on a viola made by Girolamo Brensio (1536), a family heirloom passed down from her father.

Samuel Selle (*1986 in Heidelberg) studied in Hamburg, Lübeck, and Cologne with Bernhard Gmelin, Sebastian Klinger, and the Alban Berg Quartet. His artistic development has also been shaped by a wide range of encounters with renowned musicians and ensembles, including Arto Noras, Wolfgang Boettcher, Wolfgang Emanuel Schmidt, the Beaux Arts Trio, the Artemis Quartet, and the Guarneri Quartet. He is the cellist of the internationally acclaimed Trio Adorno, founded in 2003, which is considered one of the most exciting and promising ensembles of its generation. The trio has received numerous awards and scholarships, including at the Melbourne Chamber Music Competition, the Osaka Chamber Music Competition, the German Music Competition, the International Johannes Brahms Competition, and was a semifinalist at the ARD International Music Competition. In 2022, Trio Adorno also took over the artistic direction of the chamber music series “Freunde der Kammermusik Quickborn e.V.,” which has been organizing concerts for over 60 years. Samuel Selle regularly performs at international festivals such as the Mecklenburg-Vorpommern Festival, Ludwigsburg Palace Festival, Oberstdorf Music Summer, Trondheim Chamber Music Festival, Enescu Festival, as well as at concerts throughout Europe, Asia, Central America, and Australia. In 2019, he toured Latin America—performing and giving masterclasses in Mexico, Guatemala, Nicaragua, and Costa Rica—in collaboration with the Goethe-Institut. Later that year, he also toured Saudi Arabia. In addition to his concert career, he teaches at the Youth Chamber Music Initiative Hamburg and the Hamburg Conservatory.

Lion Hinnrichs (*1988 in Hamburg) studied in Lübeck, Cologne and Berlin (University of the Arts) with Prof. Konrad Elser, the Alban Berg Quartet and Prof. Pascal Devoyon. His work with Menachem Pressler and the Artemis Quartet provided further important artistic impulses. Lion Hinnrichs has won several prizes at major competitions such as the Melbourne Chamber Music Competition, Brahms Competition, Osaka Chamber Music Competition, German Music Competition and is a semi-finalist at the ARD Music Competition. His busy concert schedule as a soloist and chamber musician has taken him throughout Europe and America, as far afield as Asia and Australia, as well as to the stages of various international festivals. This has included appearances at the Elbphilharmonie Hamburg, the Melbourne Recital Center, the Prinzregententheater Munich, the Osaka Izumi Hall and the Liederhalle Stuttgart. Various radio recordings (e.g. BR, SWR, Deutschlandfunk, MDR-Kultur, NDR-Kultur, ABC Australia) document his versatile artistic work. His CD recording In the shadow with works by Mozart, Martinu and Mendelssohn was nominated for an Echo-Klassik Award. Lion Hinnrichs is pianist of the award-winning and internationally renowned piano trio Trio Adorno, the berlin.piano.quintet and pianist of the Ensemble Quillo for contemporary music, as well as artistic director of the concert series Freunde der Kammermusik Quickborn e.V. (Friends of Chamber Music Quickborn).

"Every beginning has its magic," wrote Hermann Hesse. When the Commeter Art Gallery opened in 1821 on Johannisstraße, it was the first business of its kind in Hamburg. The founders, Ernst Georg Harzen and Johann Matthias Commeter, significantly shaped the city's art scene and left a lasting legacy with 30,000 engravings and drawings that founded the Kupferstichkabinett at the Kunsthalle. In 1847, Wilhelm Becker and Christian Meyer took over the gallery, which was further developed by Wilhelm Suhr in 1878 and moved to a magnificent Art Nouveau building in 1908. Suhr Junior led the gallery into the modern era, showcasing Munch, Nolde, and other Expressionists, becoming a key address for modern art. In 1952, Andreas Suhr took over, followed by his daughter Hella Suhr. Today, Carola Persiehl, a descendant of the founders, runs the gallery and features contemporary artists such as Jochen Hein, Maria Ikonomopoulou, and Klaus Schweier. In 2007, she co-founded the sister gallery Persiehl & Heine, specializing in contemporary photography. The gallery’s legacy of art enthusiasm and business acumen continues to thrive.

Discover all cruises on which the gallery is represented on board.

Annette Schneider is an expert in art and cultural sciences. With her company Schneider Kulturkonzept, she works independently for numerous institutions including Kunsthalle Bremen, Weserburg (Museum für moderne Kunst), Musikfest Bremen and Alte Nationalgalerie in Berlin as well as Museum Barberini in Potsdam. As a curator, she has organised many exhibitions with works, for instance, by Chinese artist Ai Weiwei, photographer Candida Höfer and visual works by Armin Mueller Stahl.

She also specialises in art and culture tours, which take her to New York, Bilbao, Berlin, Venice and other places several times a year, where she passionately conveys the many facets of these cultural metropolises. When the native Franconian is not on the road, she calls both Bremen and Berlin home.