In my ongoing endeavour to explore and demonstrate the common origin of all artistic inspiration, an interdisciplinary concert project has arisen. This Saturday, 24 March, I will team up with my fabulous colleague Klas Yngborn for a private soiree in Berlin-Zehlendorf, starting at 7 pm. In a hybrid performance combining aspects of a lyric reading and piano recital, Klas will recite some of the most beautiful examples of Expressionist poetry, while I’ll be contributing a number of intriguing early-20th-century piano pieces. Please see the Facebook event page for further details.
Events
Exploring Symbolist Creativity
I will be presenting a paper titled »Colour – Word – Sound. On the Intermediality of Genre and Sensory Perception in East European Art of the Fin de siècle« at the 12th Weimar Conference of Music Theory, taking place the following weekend at Hochschule für Musik Weimar. If you feel inclined to discuss the work of Scriabin, Medtner, Balmont, Bely, Kandinsky, Čiurlionis and other Symbolist artists, and are not discouraged by the unearthly hour of my presentation, I’d be delighted to have your company! Then and there: Sunday, 4 March 2018, 9 am, Klostergebäude am Palais.
Animal Portraits on World Tour
I am pleased to learn that, after performances in Germany, Switzerland, Italy, the Netherlands, South Korea, the United States, and Mexico, my instrumental duo suite Zoological Garden is scheduled in the Chamber Music Hutt Valley concert series in Lower Hutt, New Zealand, for May 2018. Thank you in advance, flautist Karen Batten and violist Sophia Acheson of the Toru Trio, and thank you also, Ingrid Bauer for getting in touch! Never thought that these capricious little miniatures would turn out to be my most successful composition.
Concepts of Musical Youth Development
I have been participating in a panel discussion, organised by Wolfgang Lessing at Dresden University of Music. This event was part of a newly founded network dedicated to concepts and structural problems of music education in Germany. It’s been a versatile and very inspiring exchange of thoughts with participants from various kinds of musical institutions in Saxonia and Berlin. My colleague Helge Harding and I presented our ideas for new paradigms of professional musical training. A number of other sensitive issues were brought up as well, including possible changes to university curricula and assessment of achievements in musical performance. Future engagement will require people to link themselves, to concentrate their ideas and to transfer them into a broader public in order to reach politics and administrations.
Medtner’s Night Wind Howls Again
Just to let you know, for the unlikely case that anybody shares my nerdy predilection for exuberant Russian piano music: I will be presenting my paper on Nikolai Medtner‘s E minor Sonata ›Night Wind‹, Op. 25 No. 2, once again as part of the 17th annual conference of the Gesellschaft für Musiktheorie at Universität für Musik und darstellende Kunst Graz, on November 17, 1.30 pm. Analytical insights will be augmented by in-depth examination of the work’s poetic and hermeneutic contexts. I’d be so lucky to enjoy your company!
