“Where I am going?”, the title of the joint Mahler project of the Chor des Bayer- ischen Rundfunks and Musicbanda Franui, is a quote from Mahler’s “Lied von der Erde,” which continues: “I am going to wander in the mountains, seeking peace for my lonely heart.” The manifold associations evoked by this verse shape the program. On the one hand, it aims to explore the musical develop- ment from Carl Loewe to Gustav Mahler, to shed light on the ‘former life’ of Mahler’s music. On the other hand, the arrangements and “re-compositions” by Howard Arman, whose focus is on Loewe, and by Markus Kraler and Andreas Schett, who have arranged Mahler’s vocal works for Franui’s instrumentation and the BR Choir, take up and elaborate these composers’ musical language, as Mahler’s ‘afterlife,’ so to speak. The inspiration Mahler drew from Alpine culture and folk music plays a special part in this venture. In the context of Mahler’s oeuvre, “Where I am going?” also implies an investigation into matters like departure, death, the beyond, as exemplified particularly by the final song in the “Lied von der Erde.” In this sense this ‘Farewell’ is the core of the program, which is dedicated not only to Mahler’s life and work but also to what came before and what was to come. According to Andreas Schett, the “love affair between Franui and Gustav Mahler goes back a long way,” and in Howard Arman’s view, “the timbre of Franui, this symphonically assembled folk-song-instrumental timbre, is ideal for a project of this kind.” So this is an encounter of two ensembles that ap- proach Mahler and his former life and afterlife from a very personal angle.