POETRY AFFAIRS 1

POETRY AFFAIRS 1

Wo weilst du–An die ferne (entfernte) Geliebte

by Maria Barnas and Severin Dornier

Composition commission from Musik der Jahrhunderte

A conversation, a correspondence, a clash
between Alois Isidor Jeitteles, Ludwig van Beethoven, Someone and X.
Starring: Elizabeth Audrey, Susanne Leitz-Lorey, Martin Nagy and GPT-3

Handwriting is communicating with a machine driven by an AI-chatbot; History is corresponding with the future. Various times overlap in this piece, in which the human voice strikes a disoriented note, looking for a connection with the Unknown.

Between the writing of a letter–based on a love letter by Beethoven that was never sent–and the waiting for an answer from the Unknown, fragments of Beethoven’s An die ferne Geliebte, new poems and technical devices clash and collapse, leading up to a distorted duet, reaching for bliss.

(Maria Barnas)

POETRY AFFAIRS

»Europe is always both myth and utopia. Perhaps the ancient form of the poem, reaching back to mythical times, is not the worst means of establishing at what point on the road to an ideal Europe we are. Perhaps it is in the poem, this by no means outmoded linguistic feat, that the present fears, hopes, expectations, tensions of Europe can become visible as if under a burning glass…« Jan Wagner

Inspired by his anthology »Grand Tour. Journeys through the Young Poetry of Europe«, the Neue Vocalsolisten, together with Büchner Prize winner Jan Wagner, invited five female poets and five young composer from ten different European countries to explore together the relationships between language, composition and vocal art. The multifaceted, year-long encounter is characterized by great impartiality, a desire to experiment, and the need to overcome all mutual »instrumentalization« (of music by serving sensations, of language by reducing it to sound phenomena).

In microstories, staged readings and songs, the artists explore all possibilities of combining the three genres. Five short performances by POETRY AFFAIRS will open the five festival evenings and foreshadow the hybrid encounter of music and poetry that the 17-member artist community will flesh out into a grand narrative over the course of the coming year and premiere at ECLAT 2024.

With the poets Maria Barnas (Netherlands), Vera Burlak (Belarus), Luljeta Lleshanaku (Albania), Deryn Rees-Jones (Wales), Cia Rinne (Finland),
the composers Severin Dornier (Germany), Bnaya Halperin-Kaddari (Israel), Georgia Koumara (Greece), Dariya Maminova (Russia), Gemma Ragués Pujol (Catalonia)
and the New Vocal Soloists Johanna Vargas, Susanne Leitz-Lorey, Truike van der Poel, Daniel Gloger, Martin Nagy, Guillermo Anzorena, Andreas Fischer