Publication : The Indie Grid (TIG) Date : 21 September 2026
Long before the arrival ofMOTHERS, Ute Lemper had built a career in which entertainment, history and political conscience repeatedly crossed paths. Her new 17-language peace project places that history firmly in the present, using one original composition to consider war, equality, women’s rights and the future facing children around the world.
Lemper’s relationship with politically engaged art can be traced back to Münster, Germany, where she encountered Bertolt Brecht and Kurt Weill as a teenager in the late 1970s. Brecht’s treatment of injustice, political failure and human weakness left a lasting impression. Lemper would later become one of the internationally recognized interpreters of both Brecht and Weill, carrying the work of Weimar Germany into a career spanning concert halls, Broadway, the West End and recording studios.
That history matters when approaching MOTHERS. The project, released September 21 for the International Day of Peace, does not arrive as an isolated change of direction. Instead, it continues a line of inquiry that has surfaced repeatedly throughout Lemper’s four decades as a singer, actress, composer and recording artist.
Her past projects offer clear precedents. Songs for Eternity drew upon music written by Jewish prisoners in ghettos and concentration camps during the Holocaust. Rendezvous with Marlene emerged partly from Lemper’s three-hour telephone conversation with Marlene Dietrich and incorporated Dietrich’s history of opposition to Nazi Germany. Across these different works, memory frequently becomes a route toward examining the present.
MOTHERS shifts that perspective toward a contemporary international landscape. Wars in Ukraine and the Middle East, alongside widening geopolitical division, provided part of the context for Lemper’s decision to revisit a song she had first written years earlier. Its current lyrics move from motherhood and protection toward freedom, dignity, equality and human rights.
The decision to record the composition in 17 languages expands those ideas beyond one national frame. Versions appear in English, Hebrew, Arabic, Spanish, Farsi, Kurdish, French, German, Russian, Ukrainian, Turkish, Italian, Portuguese, Chinese, Japanese, Hindi and Swahili. Across them, Lemper preserves the same underlying song while adapting its musical setting to different cultural traditions.
That balance between continuity and variation becomes one of the project’s most interesting formal ideas. AI-assisted production helped Lemper investigate arrangements drawing on sounds associated with American soul and R&B, Brazil, the Middle East, Asia and Eastern Europe. The original composition, melodic writing, structure and instrumental foundation remain Lemper’s own.
The “MOTHERS” video carries the same relationship between art and public life into its imagery. Footage from protests and demonstrations appears beside more hopeful scenes, allowing the song’s idealism to coexist with evidence of the conflict and political frustration surrounding its creation.
There is also an earlier, quieter origin behind the project. Lemper first wrote “MOTHERS” for a European television series she hosted about motherhood, built around conversations with women working as athletes, doctors, politicians and in other professions. The song was not ultimately used in the show, but Lemper kept it until circumstances prompted a return.
That long gestation gives MOTHERS an unusual place in Lemper’s catalogue. A composition born from interviews about motherhood has become a multilingual statement connected to themes that have followed her since her first encounters with Brecht and Weill. The political landscape has changed repeatedly across those decades, while the question underneath much of Lemper’s work has remained remarkably consistent: what role can art occupy when history and human vulnerability collide?
Publication : Tinnitist By : Darryl Sterdan Date : 21 September 2026
Her new multi-lingual project arrives in recognition of International Day of Peace.
Ute Lemper sings the praises of Mothers in more than a dozen languages with her new single and video — showcasing today on Tinnitist.
The internationally acclaimed singer, actress, composer and recording artist’s latest release is an international peace project built around one original song presented across 17 languages and cultures.
Arriving on the International Day of Peace, Mothers begins with something immediate and universal: The instinct to protect children, worry about their future and create the conditions in which they can grow. Across its many versions, the song carries the same central message while moving through different languages and musical traditions, calling for peace, freedom, equality and dignity across borders, religions and political systems.
The release is accompanied by a new video that moves between hopeful imagery and real footage of protests and demonstrations around the world, reflecting both the urgency behind the song and Lemper’s belief in the power of people to speak up for change. “What unites us is a lot more important than what separates us,” says Lemper. “No mother wants to lose her child in a war, as a soldier, as a victim of war, as a victim of a humanitarian crisis that is created by war.”
Lemper first wrote Mothers while hosting a European television series of the same name. Across three seasons, she spoke with women from different professions, including athletes, doctors and politicians, about motherhood. She wrote and recorded a song for the program, but the producers ultimately chose instrumental music instead. Lemper kept the song. “I said, ‘Wait a minute, the time will come,’” she remembers. “I will find another way to recreate it, to bring it out into the world.”
That time arrived this spring. Lemper returned to the recording amid wars in Ukraine and the Middle East, a renewed sense of geopolitical division and her own growing anxiety about the world her four children will inherit. She revisited the lyrics as well, sharpening the song’s call for peace, freedom and equality. What began as one song gradually expanded into a multilingual project spanning English, Spanish, Portuguese, German, Italian, Hebrew, Arabic, Ukrainian, Russian, Turkish, Hindi, Chinese, Japanese, Swahili, Farsi, French and Kurdish. Within that international framework, Lemper also wove in themes of women’s emancipation and liberation from restrictive doctrines, giving the project a broader call for dignity, agency and human rights.
The lyrics begin with refuge and care, then become increasingly direct. Mothers are described as an “army of love,” asking for dignity, tolerance, equality, rights and the ability to elect their leaders. By the song’s final section, the focus turns entirely toward children: “All children are equal in our world.”
The project also continues a thread that has run through Lemper’s work for more than four decades.
Growing up in Münster, Germany, Lemper discovered the work of Bertolt Brecht and Kurt Weill as a teenager in the late 1970s. She found in Brecht a writer who understood art as a means of confronting injustice, political failure and human weakness, and went on to become one of the leading international interpreters of Weill, Brecht and the music of Weimar Germany.
Over the decades that followed, Lemper moved through Broadway and the West End, won Olivier and Molière Awards, earned Grammy nominations, and interpreted artists ranging from Marlene Dietrich and Édith Piaf to Jacques Brel and Astor Piazzolla. Her own projects increasingly explored political conscience, memory and the responsibility of artists to engage with the world around them.
Among them was Songs For Eternity, created from music written by Jewish prisoners in ghettos and concentration camps during the Holocaust, as well as Rendezvous With Marlene, inspired by Lemper’s three-hour telephone conversation with Marlene Dietrich and the singer’s extraordinary history of standing against Nazi Germany. Lemper describes that social and political consciousness as the “red thread” running through her career.
That history sits quietly beneath Mothers. The questions are contemporary, but familiar: What happens when nationalism overwhelms empathy? What responsibility do individuals have to one another? And what can art communicate when political language no longer reaches people? “I am not sure whether art can make a political difference,” Lemper says. “But it can express something in a very direct way that is not political talk. It comes from the inside.”
Motherhood has made those questions increasingly personal. Lemper has lived in New York for roughly three decades and raised her four children there, describing the city as a “mirror of the world” where cultures, religions and nationalities coexist while retaining their differences. Twenty-five years ago, after the Cold War, she believed her children might inherit an increasingly connected world. Today, she sees war, climate change, disinformation, inequality and geopolitical division moving in the opposite direction. “We are worried about tomorrow,” she says, “and also outraged about the present.”
The international versions of Mothers grew from Lemper’s realization that the song’s message should sound as though it belonged wherever it was being heard. Using AI-assisted production as a creative tool, she preserved her original composition, melodies, structure and instrumental elements while exploring arrangements rooted in different musical traditions, from American soul and R&B to Brazilian rhythms and traditional musical languages from the Middle East, Asia and Eastern Europe.
For Lemper, the technology is a means rather than the author. “This is not AI-generated music,” she says. “I’m just using the tool for this multicultural project.” After four decades of writing, singing, recording and performing, Lemper approached the technology as another instrument to direct, using it to extend one human-authored song across cultures while maintaining the same message at its center.
MOTHERS / English
And she already imagines Mothers growing beyond the recordings themselves. A new Just Mothers platform is being developed to invite women around the world to submit videos depicting their own lives and experiences. Lemper ultimately hopes to see women singing the song in their own languages at gatherings, marches and in everyday life, and envisions a future live event bringing together singers from different cultures to perform their individual versions before joining together at the end.
For Lemper, the project comes at a moment when the concerns that have shaped much of her artistic life feel newly urgent. “I’m certainly a lot more worried now than I was six years ago,” she says. “It’s a perfect moment in my life, in this world, to make a statement.” With Mothers, that statement begins with the people raising the generation that will inherit what comes next.
Listen to the song in your preferred language below, watch the video for Mothers above, and join Ute Lemper on her website, Facebook, Twitterand Instagram.
Publication : BuzzMusic By : Jennifer Gurton Date : 21 September 2026
Internationally acclaimed singer, actress, and composer Ute Lemper looks beyond borders, languages, and cultural divisions on “MOTHERS,” an ambitious multilingual project centered on motherhood, human connection, and the universal desire to protect future generations.
Originally written while Lemper was hosting a European television series about motherhood, the song remained with her after producers ultimately chose instrumental music for the program. Years later, she returned to the composition with a new sense of urgency, transforming it into a project spanning 14 languages and cultures.
At its core, “MOTHERS” is built around a remarkably simple observation: regardless of nationality, religion, or circumstance, parents share many of the same hopes and fears for their children. Lemper channels that idea into a composition that moves from intimate expressions of refuge and care toward broader themes of dignity, equality, freedom, and peace.
The multicultural arrangements are particularly central to the project. Rather than presenting one musical interpretation repeatedly in different languages, Lemper explores sounds and traditions associated with different cultures while preserving the composition’s underlying structure. AI-assisted production is used as a creative tool within that process, though Lemper emphasizes that the songwriting, artistic direction, and decisions remain human-led.
That distinction fits an artist whose career has repeatedly examined the relationship between music and the world surrounding it. “MOTHERS” does not pretend that a song can neatly resolve political conflict. Its strength comes from approaching division through something more instinctive: the fear of losing someone you love. “What unites us is a lot more important than what separates us,” Lemper says.
With “MOTHERS,” she turns that belief into a global musical experiment, asking listeners to consider what remains when political and cultural labels are stripped away. The answer she arrives at is profoundly human: the desire to give children a future in which they can flourish.
Publication : The Real Ding Date : 21 September 2026
The starting point for Ute Lemper’sMOTHERS is smaller than its 17-language scale might suggest. Before the project reaches questions of war, political division, rights or equality, it begins with a parent worrying about a child.
That intimacy gives the project a clear center. Released September 21 for the International Day of Peace, MOTHERS considers what mothers across national, religious and cultural boundaries may share even when the political systems surrounding them differ dramatically. Children, and the future being handed to them, become the connecting idea.
The song itself follows that expansion. Its lyrics initially dwell on refuge and care before turning toward dignity, tolerance, equality and the freedom to participate in political life. The closing section then returns everything to childhood through its declaration that all children are equal. That progression allows an intensely personal subject to open gradually into a wider discussion of human rights.
Lemper’s own experience as a mother of four gives the project another layer of context. She has raised her children in New York, where she has lived for roughly three decades. The city’s coexistence of cultures, religions and nationalities became part of the thinking behind a piece built around differences that remain visible without erasing what people share.
Lemper’s own experience as a mother of four gives the project another layer of context. She has raised her children in New York, where she has lived for roughly three decades. The city’s coexistence of cultures, religions and nationalities became part of the thinking behind a piece built around differences that remain visible without erasing what people share.
That outlook contrasts with the future Lemper once imagined following the end of the Cold War. The press release traces her changing perspective through the rise of war, climate change, disinformation, inequality and geopolitical division. Rather than approaching those subjects through a conventional protest song tied to one country or conflict, MOTHERS deliberately moves between cultures.
The English“MOTHERS” therefore exists alongside 16 additional versions. Hebrew, Arabic, Spanish, Farsi, Kurdish, French, German, Russian, Ukrainian, Turkish, Italian, Portuguese, Chinese, Japanese, Hindi and Swahili recordings each carry the composition into another linguistic context. The project treats translation as part of its musical design rather than a secondary promotional exercise.
Different arrangements deepen that approach. Lemper used AI-assisted tools to explore musical traditions connected to different regions while retaining the composition, melodies, structure and instrumental material she originally created. American soul and R&B, Brazilian rhythms and traditions associated with the Middle East, Asia and Eastern Europe all enter the broader musical frame.
Photo caption : Ute Lemper with her children
Theofficial video places another visual layer around the song. Images associated with hope are set against real footage of protests and demonstrations, bringing private concern and collective action into the same space. That combination suits a project concerned with both what families fear and how people respond when those fears become public issues.
MOTHERS also has roots that predate its current global framing. Lemper originally composed the song while presenting a European television series about motherhood. After interviewing women from fields including medicine, athletics and politics, she created a song for the series, although it was ultimately unused when the producers selected instrumental music.
Years later, the circumstances surrounding the song changed enough for Lemper to revisit it. The result feels less like the recovery of an abandoned television composition than the transformation of an old idea into something substantially broader. With a Just Mothers platform also planned to invite women around the world to contribute videos of their own lives, MOTHERS is being positioned as a project that can continue beyond the recordings released on September 21.
Publication : MusicPaper.it By : Attilio Cantore Date : 13/04/2026
TRA ETICA, POLITICA E SGUARDI SULL’ARTE, UN RITRATTO DELLA CANTANTE E ATTRICE TEDESCA DALLO SPIRITO RIBELLE, CLASSE 1963, EREDE DI MARLENE DIETRICH, CHE TORNA ORA IN TOUR (A CHIASSO, ROMA E PADOVA) CON TRE DIVERSI SPETTACOLI, NEL SEGNO DI ALCUNE SUE GRANDI PASSIONI: DAL CABARET BERLINESE DEL PRIMO DOPOGUERRA ALLA CHANSON FRANCESE FINO AL TANGO DI BUENOS AIRES.
È un’artista poliedrica, inesauribile, ribelle, dal fascino magnetico e androgino come quello della leggendaria Marlene Dietrich, di cui è l’erede idolatrata e alla quale torna ora a rendere omaggio in occasione del 125 anni dalla nascita. Icona gay che canta l’amore e la fragilità, pensa come un boss e si comporta come una lady, donna libera e coraggiosa dall’etica inossidabile. In quarant’anni di carriera – e con oltre 30 dischi all’attivo – Ute Lemper ha fatto rivivere la magia e l’essenza del cabaret del primo dopoguerra, con interpretazioni personalissime dal gusto raffinato e uno scat singing sensuale, abitando da grande diva anche i mondi del musical, del teatro e del cinema, collezionando premi e nomination ai Grammy.
Il nome della cantante e attrice Ute Lemper – nata a Münster nel 1963, cresciuta nella comunità teatrale di Berlino Ovest prima della caduta del muro, due matrimoni, quattro figli e oggi residente a New York – lo si associa subito a quello delle opere del compositore ebreo Kurt Weill fuggito dalla Germania nazista – e per lei quindi baluardo di lotta infaticabile ai totalitarismi. Lo si associa naturalmente alle canzoni della Dietrich, di Édith Piaf, Jacques Brel, Astor Piazzolla ma anche al cinema d’animazione Disney: ha dato voce al personaggio di Ariel nel doppiaggio tedesco de La sirenetta e di Esmeralda ne Il gobbo di Notre Dame.
E da circa vent’anni si è distinta anche per le sue composizioni originali: nel 2023, per i suoi sessant’anni, esce l’album Time Traveler. Come per la sua vita, anche sul palco il plurilinguismo è di casa: tedesco, inglese, francese, spagnolo si intrecciano nelle esibizioni e trapuntano una sorprendente varietà di incontri artistici, raccontati in un mémoire pubblicato in Italia da Baldini+Castoldi. Come quelli con Tom Waits, Elvis Costello, Nick Cave e ancora con Philip Glass, Michael Nyman e Maurice Béjart, che ha ideato e coreografato un balletto solo per lei, La Mort Subite. Senza dimenticare l’incontro con Roger Waters per il concerto del 21 luglio 1990 in Potsdamer Platz per il primo anniversario della caduta del muro di Berlino.
Ute Lemper torna in concerto il 18, 20 e 24aprile 2026 in un tour italiano molto atteso che tocca Chiasso (Cinema Teatro), Roma (Auditorium Parco della Musica) e Padova (Teatro Verdi): a ogni tappa, un differente programma imbastito attorno a un progetto specifico, per raccontare le diverse anime di un’interprete tra le più originali della scena internazionale. E sarà in Italia ancora fra giugno e luglio, arrivando a Venezia (Teatro Goldoni), a Pisa (per la rassegna Musica Sotto la Torre) e a Bari (Teatro Petruzzelli).
Lo sguardo di un’artista ribelle che punta a rimanere «imperfetta e umana», con integrità
Signora Lemper, spesso ha dichiarato ai giornali di essere sempre stata una ribelle – e senz’altro lo è. Se, come sosteneva Deleuze, ogni atto artistico è anche un atto politico, lei come porta avanti le sue battaglie e quanto è difficile nella società di oggi farlo?
«Non credo che ogni atto artistico sia specificamente politico: è piuttosto di natura profondamente personale e intimamente umana. È vero però che ognuno di noi comprende sé stesso attraverso una concezione della vita e degli eventi circostanti, confrontandosi con contraddizioni, significati di senso, desideri, solitudini, lotte, tragedie e ingiustizie. Pertanto, gli elementi dell’arte possono commentare una situazione politica.
In questo momento, le guerre che ci circondano, i movimenti politici di destra, la democrazia in pericolo e un futuro molto instabile – in cui strutture autoritarie e la presenza militare stanno tornando in molti ambiti della vita – fanno sì che l’arte diventi di nuovo quasi pericolosa e sia soggetta per questo alla censura dei governi. La libertà oggi viene sottratta in troppi modi. E come se non bastasse l’arte viene sostituita da processi informatizzati e dall’intelligenza artificiale – e francamente le cose si muovono in maniera troppo rapida perché io riesca a starle al passo.
Dunque, tutto ciò che posso fare in questo momento storico è restare il più possibile imperfetta e umana, mantenendo la mia integrità. Ecco, questo di per sé è già una grande forma di ribellione».
La Marelene Dietrich dei nostri giorni, tra etica e politica
È stata definita la nuova Marlene Dietrich – della quale ricorrono i 125 anni dalla nascita. In che modo oggi, attraverso le sue performance, l’essenza di questa icona del Novecento parla alla contemporaneità?
«Marlene Dietrich era una donna del futuro. Era molto avanti rispetto al suo tempo in termini di emancipazione: una voce femminile che sosteneva l’empowerment e l’intelligenza delle donne, e l’uguaglianza. Lei ha avuto il coraggio di opporsi alla Germania nazista, come espatriata tedesca e soldatessa americana. Ha vissuto la propria vita secondo i suoi sogni, con libertà e integrità.
In arte è stata una donna di successo e visionaria, ma selvaggia e anticonvenzionale nei propri desideri. La fine fu piuttosto tragica: rimase sola per decenni, disperata per l’odio che incontrò in patria, la Germania. È una storia lunga e complessa… So solo che oggi sarebbe indignata nel vedere Donald Trump presidente: lei che aveva cercato di dialogare sia con Mikhail Gorbachev che con Ronald Reagan per porre fine alla Guerra Fredda e alla proliferazione delle armi nucleari».
Come è cambiato in questi anni, nel panorama artistico, il rapporto col femminismo e con il femminismo intersezionale, e quali sono le sfide maggiori da portare sul palcoscenico?
«Penso che la maggior parte degli artisti abbia preso posizione e sia riuscita a realizzare le proprie idee e ad affermare la propria identità, per quanto non convenzionali possano risultare ad alcuni. Credo che faccia parte dell’identità artistica non sottomettersi alle convenzioni o alle tradizioni, ma cercare una personalità indipendente e libera che esprima la propria verità.
Purtroppo, il dio del Commercio sembra ancora più potente della libertà e molti artisti stanno modellando la propria identità secondo le regole del mercato, vendendo così la propria anima per fare denaro. Certo, tutti devono vivere, o per lo meno sopravvivere: la domanda è fino a che punto si è disposti ad arrivare, quali compromessi si accettano e soprattutto che cosa si ha davvero da dire».
Una viaggiatrice del tempo dallo spirito libero
Lei si definisce una time traveler. E in ogni viaggio, si sa, c’è sempre una costante. Qual è l’elemento che in lei è rimasto davvero immutato, nel suo itinerario artistico?
«Sono sempre interessata a esplorare passaggi di fuga, sopravvivenza e la ricerca della verità, così come a trovare il senso poetico in queste storie. Che si tratti di Kurt Weill, Astor Piazzolla, Pablo Neruda, Marlene Dietrich o di me stessa ci sono sempre molti elementi nel mosaico delle storie. Così ogni storia trova un’importanza nel mio cuore: come un filo di poesia e musica che seguo lungo il cammino.
D’altronde, la persona che piange per una perdita profonda – perdita dell’amore, della fede o di una casa – ha la stessa identica voce allora come oggi, in un mondo in continua evoluzione. La storia avrebbe voluto essere una buona insegnante, ma evidentemente non è riuscita a trovare studenti».
C’è un periodo della sua carriera al quale ama tronare più spesso, viaggiandofra ricordi particolarmente cari?
«Da più di quarant’ani sono diventata una voce che canta la musica della Repubblica di Weimar. Si tratta di un periodo estremamente rivoluzionario, in un’epoca che ha dato agli artisti la possibilità di rompere ogni tradizione e convenzione possibile – e al tempo stesso di aspirare a un mondo nuovo e libero».
I nuovi muri di Berlino…
Da artista tedesca, ha vissuto la caduta del muro di Berlino nel 1989. Oggi, da artista dal respiro internazionale, cosa rappresenta per lei un nuovo muro?
«Gli Stati Uniti sono molto impegnati a costruire muri sotto questa nuova amministrazione: muri per tenere fuori persone e rifugiati, muri per imporre interessi nazionalistici e populisti, muri per affermare un dominio economico e una moralità unidimensionale.
Abbiamo già nuovi muri, nuove “cortine di ferro”. La Russia e gli Stati Uniti stanno ancora combattendo una Guerra Fredda, che si estende anche agli alleati coinvolti su entrambi i fronti. E l’Europa si trova intrappolata nel mezzo».
… e il compito degli artisti oggi
In un momento storico di inafferrabile evoluzione, quale crede sia oggi il compito più importante di un’artista, emergente e non?
«Nel nostro tempo è fondamentale avere una voce molto personale, unica, soprattutto con una storia da raccontare. Ritengo che sia molto importante non conformarsi mai, seguendo il proprio cuore e il proprio istinto».
Ha tradotto in musica le parole di Charles Bukowski, Pablo Neruda e Paulo Coelho. Che cosa cerca in un testo letterario?
«Cerco una voce, un grido che dal buio si manifesti come una poesia e che sconvolga e seduca al tempo stesso».
Alla ricerca di una voce intima e il nuovo tour in Italia
Da circa vent’anni ha deciso di iniziare a incidere canzoni di sua composizione. Come è arrivata a trovare la propria autentica voce autoriale?
«Ci è voluto tempo e ci sto ancora lavorando. Non mi piace essere teatrale con le mie canzoni e composizioni, preferisco invece un approccio intimo e raccolto. Quando scrivo, mi piace esplorare differenti possibilità musicali. È straordinario partire da un’idea semplice e creare, poco a poco, un intero progetto, riunendo un team di persone meravigliose per realizzarlo e dargli vita in una dimensione plurima».
Intanto, per questo tour italiano, proporrà tre spettacoli diversi: Time Traveler, Paris Paris e Last Tango in Berlin. Come cambia il suo approccio vocale quando passa dalla chanson francese al pathos e all’improvvisazione del tango di Buenos Aires?
«Tutti gli spettacoli sono collegati tra loro e racconto viaggi che vanno da Berlino a Buenos Aires, da Berlino a Parigi, oppure il mio stesso percorso da Berlino a New York. A volte le canzoni indossano abiti musicali diversi, ma l’essere umano dentro quegli abiti sono sempre io».
Un’ultima curiosità: se dovesse scegliere un motto per descrivere la sua essenza – di donna e di artista – quale sarebbe?
«Siate coraggiosi, impegnatevi e portate avanti i vostri sogni: non arrendetevi mai, date più di quanto ricevete e restate concentrati e umili, sempre».
