Entertainment

Founded in 1999, DDC is one of the most renowned breakdance crews in the German-speaking world. Combining breakdance with modern artistry, they have won numerous awards. The crew has toured worldwide, performed at major festivals, and produced over 300 shows, including "Breakin' Mozart." DDC is known for gala shows, TV appearances, and large live events. In 2013, they founded their own company and also provide talent development at the DDC Factory. Since 2023, their tour program "Breakin' Circus" has been on the road.

The SIGNUM saxophone quartet is everything – except ordinary: four outstanding saxophonists who have known each other since their youth and have been reinventing themselves ever since. Musical genre crossover, in which a deep devotion to the classic string quartet sound goes hand in hand with great enthusiasm for the rock classics of our time. In addition, an incomparable charisma that puts the icing on the impressive, virtuoso skills of Blaž Kemperle, Jacopo Taddei, Alan Lužar and David Brand. From the first moment of their performances, the exceptional musicians spark musical fireworks filled with emotion – characterised by an insatiable curiosity for stylistic music borderline experiences and the unwavering search for the perfect ensemble sound. Whether original compositions for saxophone quartet, arrangements of orchestral works, baroque compositions, or rock music – SIGNUM’s unwavering love of music extends to almost all eras and genres. It’s difficult to put into words this masterful joy of playing. You simply must experience them.

Photocredit: Anna Tena

Cellist Raphaela Gromes is one of the defining voices of her generation. Since 2016, she has been an exclusive artist with Sony Classical. Her critically acclaimed albums have received numerous prestigious awards, including the Opus Klassik, the Diapason d’Or, and the German Record Critics’ Award, and have topped the German classical music charts. With her highly successful 2023 album Femmes, which features works by 24 female composers, she gained international attention and made a strong artistic statement for the visibility of women in composition. Since 2012, she has formed a permanent duo with pianist Julian Riem, whose arrangements form the foundation of their remarkable and diverse programming. Together, they perform in a variety of formations, including collaborations with the Signum Saxophone Quartet.

Photocredit: Gregor Hohenberg

Julian Riem is one of the most versatile pianists on today’s classical music scene. As a soloist, chamber musician, and song accompanist, he performs regularly across Europe, Asia, and the Americas. His mentors—none other than Michel Béroff, Michael Schäfer, and Rudolf Buchbinder—recognized him early on as one of the “most promising pianists of his generation.” His exceptional musicality is reflected in his openness to new ideas, his enthusiasm for creating arrangements for piano, chamber ensembles, and orchestra, as well as his strong affinity for contemporary compositions.

Photocredit: Gregor Hohenberg

David Marx, born in Stuttgart in 1968, is many things: father, husband, speaker, mentor, designer, entertainer and avant-gardist with a penchant for minimalism and a strong drive for innovation, characterized by radical approaches to existing aesthetic and culinary norms. Over 12 years ago, he founded his own food lab in Berlin, where science and technology meet haute cuisine. His experimental kitchen serves as a creative playground for renowned chefs, food scientists and designers from all over the world - united by the desire to completely reshape the culinary landscape of the future. This has already resulted in award-winning products such as his ice cream with style, the dessert bar House on The Moon, which he launched with three-star chef Juan Amador, and the “Replikanten” - non-alcoholic drinks in tablet form. David Marx is currently working on the “Picnic on Mars” event series and an AI-based recipe-finding solution for up-and-coming chefs.

Rupprecht Matthies, recipient of the renowned Ars Viva Prize awarded by the Kulturkreis der deutschen Industrie im BDI (1989), lives and works in Hamburg. Since the 1990s, he has developed a body of work that understands language as poetic, social, and political material. Words, sentences, and linguistic fragments are transformed into spatial, visual, and emotional experiences. His works move between installation, sculpture, drawing, paper cutting, mobiles, and public art.

Matthies became internationally known particularly for his text installations and site-specific works, in which language addresses questions of memory, identity, belonging, and social coexistence. His projects have been realized in numerous international exhibitions, museums, and public spaces, including in the USA, South Korea, India, Austria, and various European institutions and collections.

In addition, Matthies developed large-scale installations for Munich Re and Siemens in close collaboration with employees and executive management. In these works, he connects artistic language with collective experience, communication processes, and questions of corporate culture.

Alongside his language-based works, Matthies engages deeply with art historical traditions. In particular, his delicate paper cuts reinterpret motifs of the Old Masters as well as works by Philipp Otto Runge, translating them into a contemporary and poetic visual language. In doing so, he combines historical references with questions of spirituality and the present.

His work is distinguished by a unique combination of conceptual precision, social sensitivity, and poetic openness.

The artist Rupprecht Matthies was born in Hamburg in 1959 and lives in Hamburg, where he has a large studio, and in Berlin, where he has a suitcase and a small studio.  He is a master of the word and of collecting. A word, a thought, a concept. This creates an interplay between the three participants: a word becomes sculpture, calligraphy becomes three-dimensional, changing its state from ink to acrylic. Thoughts are literally placed in space. Many of his objects and projects are created in the context of social and personal narratives. For our cruise, he has designed special objects and images that relate to scripts and signs from India and Asia. Rupprecht Matthies has exhibited his works in Mumbai/India, Pusan/South Korea, Denver/USA and many other places worldwide. Visit the artist in the gallery, discover his world and the beauty of calligraphy. 

Discover all cruises on which Rupprecht Mathies is on board.