What can a (new) beginning look like in the face of drastic upheavals, ecological challenges and the consequences of the pandemic? This question is addressed by Solistenensemble Kaleidoskop in the new music theater production Beginn together with the director and choreographer Ben J. Riepe, the composer Bára Gísladóttir and musicians of the Lower Saxony State Orchestra Hanover. Beginn will celebrate its premiere on 31.3.2022 at the Orangerie Herrenhausen.
In the joint cooperation project "NEUN", Solistenensemble Kaleidoskop and the Hanover State Opera explore new forms of performance of classical orchestral repertoire. After the first joint project Abschied took Mahler's 9th Symphony as its basis, another monument of orchestral literature serves as the starting point of Beginn: Ludwig van Beethoven's 9th Symphony marked an artistic turning point in its time and serves as the intellectual basis for taking a close look at current upheavals in Beginn. Under the direction of Ben J. Riepe, six Kaleidoskop soloists will join forces with six musicians from the Lower Saxony State Orchestra Hanover to form a new performance ensemble for a limited period of time, performing not only musically but also in action and movement on stage.
The contrasts of string and wind instruments, of freelance musicians and members of a state orchestra, as well as of notated and improvised sounds will provide the musical basis on which this musical-performative new creation will emerge. In Bára Gísladóttir's composition for Beginn, percussion instruments are given special relevance, stage elements are also explored for sonic possibilities, and the physicality of the music and the music makers themselves takes center stage, shifting listening habits.
"We are in a kind of turning point between two crises, in a transformation process in which everything is in motion. What can be our role as human beings in this? [...] With all artistic means I would like to envision a BEGINNING with the musicians as stage actors: How and what can this "new world" be? What baggage, what archive, what ballast perhaps, but possibly also: what possibilities do we bring with us from the past to shape the future? What do we have to say goodbye to for good [...]? In the staging of the evening we will make this "baggage" visible in the literal sense of the word, because we will work with boxes with different contents, which already formally allow many associations: Time capsules, archival boxes, instrument cases. [...] The starting point and content of my rehearsal work is the breath, as an instrument and communal practice, because it connects us both with each other and with nature, and in music it is both a sound generator and a marker of community and commonality." Ben J. Riepe
