Enlarge image (© Salut Salon / Photo: Thorsten Wingenfelder) When the lights come up at the Kennedy Center’s Millennium Stage, you expect the quartet of elegant young women dressed all in black, two violinists, a cellist and a pianist, to begin playing something classical, by Brahms, Beethoven, or Debussy, perhaps.

Instead, violinists Angelika Bachmann and Iris Siegfried are keeping a lively beat, tapping on a violin and stomping on the floor. Cellist Sonja Lena Schmid soon joins in, making her string instrument into a drum, and is followed by Anne-Monika von Twardowski, who is thumping away vigorously on her grand piano.

This is Salut Salon, a group of classically-trained, attractive female performers from Hamburg, masters of the art of crossover, who have been surprising and charming audiences with their spunky, humor-filled, and heartfelt interpretations of old and new music since their founding in 2000. In early September, Salut Salon came to Washington, DC for two performances as part of the “do Deutsch – German Weeks” campaign.

In addition to their sparkling musicianship, audience members at the Kennedy Center, where Salut Salon played on September 2, were impressed by the quartet’s energetic stage presence. The opening number, the Greek folk song Misirlou, made famous through Quentin Tarantino’s Pulp Fiction, concluded with all four members leaning precariously to the left, while pianist Twardowski and cellist Schmid Enlarge image Salut Salon (© Salut Salon) continued playing behind their backs. This combination of the playful and the disciplined, the hallmark of Salut Salon’s approach to music-making, is what has kept them in demand in concert halls throughout Germany and beyond.

The performance continued with a highly diverse program of works, including an original chanson in several languages, a piano duet with “Oscar,” introduced as “a great piano virtuoso who traveled all the way with us from Germany,” and the “Ballet of the Unhatched Chicks.” That “Oscar” was a puppet given a helping hand by Ms. Siegried only contributed to the audience’s appreciation of the music.

In addition to the Millennium Stage performance, Salut Salon also performed at Blue Alley in the Georgetown neighborhood of Washington, DC. With any luck, they will return to the United States soon to enchant further audiences with their beautiful, and not a little zany, classical music with a twist.

For more on Salut Salon, visit their website:

Salut Salon