Anything Goes - The Music of Cole Porter

Kenneth Berkel, born in 1996 in Berlin, discovered his passion for playing the piano at the age of six. He studied jazz piano at the Jazz Institute Berlin with Prof. Wolfgang Köhler and Tino Derado, as well as classical piano. Today, Kenneth Berkel is active as a pianist and composer in numerous ensembles, including the "Torsten Zwingenberger 4tet" and the Big Band of the Deutsche Oper Berlin. Since 2022, he has been a member of the orchestra of the Bad Hersfeld Festival. He has collaborated with artists such as Katharine Mehrling, Gitte Hænning, Fola Dada, and Ilja Richter, and has performed for the Federal President of Germany.

In his solo series at Orania.Berlin, he focuses on the music of American composer and lyricist Cole Porter (1891–1964), who rose to fame primarily in the 1920s through the 1950s. Porter composed around 40 musicals, including Anything Goes (1934) and Kiss Me, Kate (1948), as well as numerous Broadway hits and classics from the Great American Songbook, such as Night and Day, I’ve Got You Under My Skin, and Love for Sale. Kenneth Berkel reintroduces and, in part, reinterprets these and other songs.