DNA Anouchka Hack & Katharina Hack

These days, we’re surrounded by music everywhere—yet the question of where it really comes from is becoming increasingly pressing. Streaming platforms are flooded with sounds whose creators may no longer be human. Algorithms compose, produce, and release music. Against this backdrop, on October 16, 2026, Anouchka and Katharina Hack will release an album on Berlin Classics that reveals its origins with every note: from a shared childhood, from three decades of playing together, from lived history. The title is simple and programmatic: “DNA.”

It would be too simplistic to view this merely as a statement. For what Anouchka and Katharina Hack unfold on their third duo album is more than a rejection of the artificial. It is an exploration of the question of what art actually is—and what connects the people who create it. “With this album, we want to shed light not only on our bond as sisters, but also on our upbringing in a family of artists and the connection between artists,” says Anouchka Hack. The answer the album provides is as personal as it is universal: art emerges in the space in between—between two people, two instruments, two generations.

The two sisters grew up in a world full of sound: their father was a cellist, their mother a pianist, and their home was a place where music wasn’t just played—it was lived. The fact that they have transformed this formative experience into an extraordinary artistic career is demonstrated not least by the nominations of their debut album—Shostakovich Sonatas, released in 2020 by GENUIN classics—for the German Record Critics’ Award and the Opus Klassik. Concert evenings, backstage labyrinths at the opera, chamber music as a family ritual—and time and again, that special experience of immersing themselves together in worlds of sound. Katharina, a year and a half older, chose the piano. Anouchka followed in her father’s footsteps to the cello. Since then, they have been developing together what they call their “duo sound”: warm, equal, and free of hierarchy—a connection that can be heard but not forced.