In our January post, we introduced PODIUM – Young European Music Festival Esslingen to you. For three years, young people from various academic and professional backgrounds have been working on developing a new, contemporary performance culture. They have been working on conceiving new concert formats and communication strategies, while leaving untouched what is always the central focus: the musical work of art. In the following guest article, Katharina from PODIUM describes this year’s festival program.
This year – from 13th to 21st April – we are going to present our most ambitious program so far with fifteen concerts in seven days with fifty excellent young musicians from all over Europe. We present concerts all over the town of Esslingen am Neckar from the club to the historical town hall, from a concert on gym balls to a classical brunch. Often also including other art forms and synthesizing classical music with poetry, dance and new social-aesthetic frameworks.
The festival starts with an opening concert which is everything but a usual opening concert! It is a story which only music can tell. The musical suspense is interwoven and flanked by poems and texts create a gripping dramatic composition that reveals musical poetry of the last 130 years. In the end one discovers that after everything is said, Johann Sebastian Bach still has an infinite amount to say.
One of this year’s highlights is the cooperation with the Bundesjugendballett (German National Youth Ballet). The ensemble’s own choreographies to Schubert and that of the young extraordinary dancer and choreographer Sasha Riva lend the live music a new dimension of expression.
The concert “Erlebtes Leben” (Life Experienced) describes the chronological stages in a human life in abstract musical form. But this concert is also a great deal more: Texts will be inserted to all life phases, banners hung up, performative interventions provided and projected on a dozen monitors throughout the room. Some of the contents will have been collected through worldwide crowdsourcing over all kinds of different channels, making this concert a multicultural flood of personal impressions on the stages of human life. To be part of this project send your own memories, photos or texts to post@podiumfestival.de or post it on facebook. Find more information on our News Blog.
Already last year a huge success, PODIUM.360° is more than a concert, but also much more than an ordinary club evening. Everything is of the best: great music from three centuries, an additional live visuals installation and the prominent DJ and producer Stefan Goldmann (Berghain Berlin), who combines the live acts with demanding electronic music.
The monumental conclusion of PODIUM 2012 will take place in the fascinatingly lit up Frauenkirche, with Mahler’s “The Song of the Earth” and a specially-composed work played by musicians distributed throughout the church.
We’re looking forward to seeing you at PODIUM 2012 in Esslingen from 13th to 21st April!
More information: www.podiumfestival.de, podiumnews.posterous.com
Tickets online: artoporta.com/institution/podiumfestival/calendar
Tickets in Esslingen: podiumfestival.de/pages/de/tickets.php