Arnold Kasar is a Berlin-based pianist, composer, producer, and mastering engineer. Over the past three decades, his work has moved fluidly between ambient, electronic, and contemporary classical spaces – often erasing the distinctions between them.
He began his career in Berlin’s post-club landscape, releasing through the influential Sonar Kollektiv label and performing with nu-jazz and electro-chanson acts such as Micatone and Nylon. His collaborations with performance artist Friedrich Liechtenstein introduced surreal, genre-fluid pop into his orbit.
A long-running partnership with Hans-Joachim Roedelius, including their 2017 Deutsche Grammophon release Einfluss, cemented his standing as a cross-generational connector of musical worlds. His solo albums have been praised for their quiet innovation and tonal depth. His new album Spring Songs unfolds across eight distilled pieces – interconnected yet self-contained – where Kasar’s acoustic piano drifts within finely drawn electronic contours. Evolving from the quiet architecture of “Spring Song,” first heard on Kasar’s 2019 album Resonanz, this new work extends the theme into a larger spatial meditation. The result is a sound world that feels both grounded and aerial, analogue and spectral – where memory, structure, and silence hold equal presence.
Arnold presents his new album Spring Songs at silent green on Thursday, 12.02.2026.
Facts
1: War is not the answer.
2: You can cut a vinyl record groove not only outside-to-inside, it is also possible to cut the groove going inside-out.
3: More than 5000 wild boars are native in Berlin.
Questions
1. What is the biggest inspiration for your music?
Inspiration actually comes to me more often when I make small efforts not to be inspired.
2. How and when did you get into making music?
At the age of 10, first jammin’ around on a hammond organ, afterwards on a piano, classical education and improvising as well. Since access to sheet music for popular and modern music was difficult before the digital age, I learned these pieces from recordings on vinyl and cassette. This trained my ear and musical sense.
3. What are your 5 favourite albums of all time?
Bill Evans – Portrait In Jazz
Julie Byrne – Not Even Happiness
Matthew Herbert – Bodily Functions
Arthur Russel – World Of Echo
Feist – Let It Die
4. What do you associate with Berlin?
Berlin is always morphing into something new. Berlin is not really Germany.
5. What’s your favourite place in your town?
Gärten der Welt
6. If there was no music in the world, what would you do instead?
I really can’t imagine life without music … OK, gardening.
7. What was the last record you bought?
Ms* Gloom – Ballads for Da Bizness
8. Who would you most like to collaborate with?
I would love to collaborate with a choir, or with an accordionist or trumpet player. Either in a church or on a harvested cornfield.
9. What was your best gig (as performer or spectator)?
The best gig is always the current one. I enjoy playing solo, but I also enjoy playing with other musicians, because when you put your heart into it and open yourself up, something great can happen, something greater than the sum of the individual contributions. It was wonderful at the Elbphilharmonie with Joachim Roedelius and at Heimathafen with Friedrich Liechtenstein. And I really enjoy playing solo at silent green.
10. How important is technology to your creative process?
When creating music, I have to focus AND forget about technology at once.
11. Do you have siblings and how do they feel about your career?
My brother is a guitar player and my daughter is a singer and music producer. So family conversations tend to revolve around music, technology, and all the complex and sometimes challenging issues around them.
