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2ND CALL #LIEDINNOVATION
The overall concept of the RHONEFESTIVAL embodies the extraordinary potential of the “Lied” in the 21st century. This is shown in particular through the international call for project proposals #LIEDINNOVATION. The festival stands for immersive, socio-cultural formats that fuel current affairs and promotes new artistic approaches, particularly through the #LIEDINNOVATION, while acknowledging people’s basic right for culture.
For the second #LIEDINNOVATION we are looking for your vision of a 21st century song recital. In particular we look forward to concepts that contextualise the Lied in relation to current social and environmental issues, that surpass the traditional concert format or that deal with urban spaces versus the natural landscape (of the Valais).
STATEMENT OF THE JURY
We were particularly impressed by the artistic quality, the musical level, the diversity of the projects and the interlacing of the art of song with socio-political issues of the 34 internationally submitted concepts. With the top-class submissions and the associated commitment, the artists have set a significant signal for the urgency of the classical music scene to grapple with the – at first glance supposedly – external-musical context. With this in mind, we would like to thank all artists for their commitment!
We are firmly convinced that social challenges need interdisciplinary approaches that incorporate the arts from the start. We regard our #LIEDINNOVATION format as a statement for the exchange of music, the performing arts, science and nature. Especially in difficult times, we want to enable and intensively promote such an indispensable space for collision and reflection.
We are particularly fascinated by the reconfigurations of the format “concert” in time and space. Many of the submitted concepts question the conventions of auditorium and stage, narratives and linearity.
The expansion of the traditional concert space provides impetus for future, contemporary discussions on the genre of art song. We would like to support this innovative strength with our finalists – and especially with the selected winning concept LIEDMOVIES.
Statement by this year’s jury consisting of FRANZISKA HEINZEN & LEA LUKA SIKAU
WINNER ENSEMBLE 2021
LIEDMOVIES. A MUSICAL EXPOSITION
PIA DAVILA, soprano & scene
LUISE KAUTZ, stage directior
SIMON JANSSEN, video
VALENTIN MATTKA, setting & installation
With its mixed-media format, the concept of the winning ensemble illuminates a new aesthetic moment and deconstructs the black box of the concert. As a mobile white cube, the LIEDMOVIES installation combines the aesthetics of media art and music video: The song movies expand the temporality and spatiality of the song and rethink the live moment in the digital age.
The innovative and artistically highly demanding format embodies an interdisciplinary approach to solving the problem of combining the arts with one another, facilitating access to the music that is heard – and thus continuing to experience the art of song even in challenging times and in new places.
FINALISTS 2021
FLYING AND PAVEMENT CREATURES.
ADRIANA ARANDA, soprano
MARC SERRA, pianist
JUAN JURADO, composer & electronics
Performative duality between nature and urbanity, poetry and electronics, participatory and extended concert hall. Insects as an essential part of our ecosystem juxtapose rough urbanity and artificiality through the composition “9 weightless insects” by Juan Jurado, oscillating between notated instant composing, electronics and audience interventions.
We are enthusiastic about the combination of music and nature, between insects and human voices as well as between natural and alienated sound spheres. The reference and the agile interaction with the outside world (nature, urban space and audience) as a friction surface and space for reflection convinced us and we would like to award these contemporary pioneers as finalists.
réBELLES
JOSEFINE GÖHMANN, soprano
MARIO HÄRING, pianist
LOUISE WAGNER, choreography
LENNART LABERENZ, video
A performative concert of strong female figures from the last hundred years. With a view to the 50th anniversary of women’s suffrage in Switzerland, this concept fits very well to a Swiss festival: the fragmentary impression of different images of women takes us to another time for the duration of a song and at the same time allows us to reflect on it from today’s perspective. Through content and form, the ensemble draws attention to the fact that images of women are changing, but that there is no natural, linear development in terms of equal opportunities, but that we have to get involved anew every day.
WINTER JOURNEY IN A POST-WINTER WORLD
ANDREW ROBERT MUNN, bass
RAMI SARIEDDINE, pianist
NINA C. YOUNG, electronics
Schubert’s winter journey as reflected in climate change: Schubert’s winter journey is contextualized visually and dramaturgically using climate data from the last two centuries. In the process, freezing cold meets burning hearts, historical climate data meets emotional unpredictability, the force of nature meets loss of love: The historical climate paragraphs show the protagonist’s increasingly hopeless situation within the cycle; as well as the increasingly dramatic climatic situation from the year the winter journey was created in 1827 to the near future 2027. As early as 1816, Europe was confronted with extraordinary climatic changes due to the Indonesian volcanic eruption of Tambora, which also influenced Franz Schubert’s work.
Over two hundred years later, society is confronted not with the cold but with the drastic global warming. We welcome the combination of historical events with the present and future, as well as the appealing urgency and artistic examination of unstoppable changes through the art that the ensemble presents with this concept.
SPIRITUALITY & PARADISE
MARGARETE HUBER, soprano & electronics
FIDAN AGHAYEVA-EDLER, piano & electronics
Fewer and fewer people in Europe identify with institutions of faith. At the same time, belief and spirituality are central components of many identities, offer new points of reference and shape our perception of the world.
The SPIRITUALITY & PARADISE concept addresses this awareness through changed framework conditions such as the pandemic. We welcome the combination of Hildegard von Bingens chants to the modern art song and improvisation, which describe the modern mysticism between isolation, nature, life, death, madness and ecstasy.
AND THEN?
SOPHIA KÖRBER, soprano
FRANZISKA STAUBACH, piano
LARA SÜß, acting & improvisation
CHI HIM CHIK, video art & audio design
AND THEN? reflects on the medium of time between mechanical measurement and continuous change, between physically concrete and fleeting feelings, the past and the future. The art song merges with improvisation, scenic representation, instrumentals and vowels.
We are enthusiastic about the multimedia interlacing of the arts through electronic sounds and video art, which create an interactive moment in time.
LIEDINNOVATION@RHONEFESTIVAL.CH