19 August 2021

“Winter Music” – Summer Time Version
Concert evening of works by Akademie members on the subject of “tragedy”
Friday and Saturday, 27 and 28 August 2021, Hanseatenweg

The “Winter Music” contemporary music festival, curated by Akademie member Annesley Black and Samir Odeh-Tamimi, Deputy Director of the Music Section, is presenting selected compositions by ten members of the Akademie der Künste on the subject of “tragedy”. The Berlin Zafraan Ensemble will perform and host the concert evenings on 27 and 28 August at Hanseatenweg. The festival first took place in December 2018, and its second staging was postponed to the summer due to the pandemic.

Taking as their point of departure ancient tragedy, which for them is timeless and always relevant, the curators ask: How does a person act when he or she sees no way out? Rather than offering answers, the selected works add many facets to the question, use acoustic means to explore the emotional spectrum and investigate music’s capacity to express present-day tragedies.

The programme was conceptualized around the composition La Prison by the trombonist and composer Vinko Globokar, who fills the stage with a powerful physical and tonal presence that captivates the audience with special timbres, gratings and thunder sheets along with precisely defined performative playing instructions. In his solo composition for bass clarinet, Rolf Riehm sought compositional expression for a “situation that was extremely incoherent, extremely contradictory, extremely erratic in its claim on reality, yet totally detached from life” experienced when flying over wartime Iraq. “How the incongruous harmonises with itself” is Cornelius Schwehr’s comment on his piece for flute, oboe and clarinet: Helmut Zapf’s work addresses the encounter between David and Goliath. Isabel Mundry also describes the background for her composition Sounds, Archeologies as an experience of contradictory feelings in response to the refugee crisis and restitution debates, leading her to an “archaeological” analysis of the conditions of composing. Political and sociological issues often mean rethinking the process of composing. This also applies to Erhard Grosskopf’s chamber concerto for piano and large ensemble Und Bilder beßrer Zeit um unsre Seele schweben, which refers to a poem by Hölderlin and was written in the uncertain times during the fall of the Wall in 1989/90. Steffen Schleiermacher examines psychological, historical and political wounds in Herakles, an interpretation of Heiner Müller. In Nicolaus A. Huber’s work, pain and grief find expression in a process propelled by contrasts. Rebecca Saunders’ composition Fury, on the other hand, conveys pure explosive emotionality.

Programme
Friday, 27 August
Isabel Mundry: Sounds, Archeologies (2017 / 2018)
Rebecca Saunders: Fury II, concerto for solo double bass and ensemble (2010)
Erhard Grosskopf: Und Bilder beßrer Zeit um unsre Seele schweben, chamber concerto for piano and 11 instruments, op. 41 (1989 / 90)
Hans Wüthrich: 2 Minuten gegen das Vergessen (1978)

Saturday, 28 August
Nicolaus A. Huber: Aus Schmerz und Trauer (1982)
Cornelius Schwehr: Wie bei Bogen und Leier for flute, oboe and clarinet (1996)
Helmut Zapf: David und Goliath for solo accordion (2011)
Vinko Globokar: La Prison for eight instruments (2001)
Steffen Schleiermacher: Herakles – 1. Annäherung an Heiner Müller for piano (2000)
Rolf Riehm: Ton für Ton (weisse Strassen Babylons) for contrabass clarinet (2007)

With the Zafraan Ensemble conducted by Timo Kreuser
In connection with the Contemporary Music Month

Event details
Winter Music – Tragedy. Summer Time Version
Friday, 27.08.2021, 8 pm
Saturday, 28.08.2021, 8 pm
Tickets in both cases EUR 13/7, www.adk.de/tickets, ticket@adk.de
Akademie der Künste, Hanseatenweg 10, 10557 Berlin

Press tickets available from presse@adk.de, Tel. 030 200 57-1514