I am a Mistake

A creation by Jan Fabre, and

November and December 2007 I. THE PROJECT

Jan Fabre has been commissioned by ECHO, the European concert halls organisation, to produce I am a Mistake, a creation in which music, film, dance and theatre are organically fused. A concertante to new music by Wolfgang Rihm for one actor, four dancers of Troubleyn|Jan Fabre, eighteen musicians, with accompaniment from the first note to the last in the form of a film by Chantal Akerman.

The Belgian artist Jan Fabre has invited the German composer Wolfgang Rihm to join him for the creation of I am a Mistake. The basis for this creation is an original text by Jan Fabre, entitled I am a Mistake. It is a manifest that amounts almost to a profession of faith by the artist. The blunt confession I am a Mistake is like a mantra that repeats and divides; the voice in this text weaves his web of confessions and meanings, sometimes as a metaphor of an artist sometimes in a protesting tone. Protest against reality and its laws, against matters of fact and their conformism. It comes as no surprise that this piece is dedicated to the subversive film-maker (and amateur entomologist) Luis Buñuel and to Antonin Artaud.

I am loyal to the pleasure that is trying to kill me

‘I am a mistake because I shape my life and work organically in accordance with my own judgement with no concern for what one ought to do or say’, this is the artist’s frank summary of his world view. And the ‘first person’ knows that there is a price to be paid for this: that of gradual self-destruction. This urge for self- affirmation and disregard for man-made and natural laws is made very clear by the repeated and incorrigible smoking on stage and the open praise of the cigarette, despite its harmful effects being known, ‘I am loyal to the pleasure that is trying to kill me’. After a lyrical and delirious monologue this is a certain end, because ‘I am immortal’.

Wolfgang Rihm created a composition for a ‘music-infected actor who can speak the words in the context of my music’. The Flemish actress Hilde Van Mieghem will pronounce the text by Jan Fabre. This exceptional collaboration should result in a multidisciplinary performance in which film images, live-music (by the & guests), words, song and dance scenes complement and enhance one another.

Chantal Akerman has made a special film on location in , with a number of Jan Fabre’s dancers and actors, which will be projected during the concert/performance.

2 II. DISTRIBUTION

Text, scenography and direction: Jan Fabre Choreography: Jan Fabre and the dancers Film: Chantal Akerman Musical Composition: Wolfgang Rihm Assistant to Jan Fabre & dramaturgy: Miet Martens

Speaking voice: Hilde Van Mieghem Dancers: Sylvia Camarda, Manon Avermaete, Eleonora Mercatali, Tawny Andersen

Live Music: Ensemble Recherche: Martin Fahlenbock (flute), Jaime Gonzalez (oboe), Shizuyo Oka (clarinet), Melise Mellinger (violin), Barbara Maurer (viola), Asa Akerberg (cello), Christian Dierstein (percussion), Klaus Steffes- Holländer (piano), Jean-Pierre Collot (piano) Guests : Markus Schwind (trumpet), Andrew Digby (trombone), Laszlo Hudacsek (percussion), Beate Anton (harp), Ulrich Schneider (double bass)

Singers: Matthias Horn, Johannes M. Kösters

Conductor: Lucas Vis

Producer: Troubleyn|Jan Fabre Technical coordination: Geert Van der Auwera Technician: Jeroen Van Esbroeck Production manager: Helga Van den Bossche Stagiaire: Elodie Sicard (dancer)

Management Ensemble Recherche: Tanja Ratzke, Beate Rieker, Dr. Sabine Franz Guest transportmanager: Peter Härringer

Film direction: Chantal Akerman Image: Raymond Fromont Assistant to Raymond Fromont: Leslie Vandermeulen Editing: Claire Atherton Make up: Gerda Van Hoof Colour correction: Isabelle Laclau Executive Production: Paradise Films, Marilyn Watelet Production: Chemah I.S Technical Equipment: Sylicone, Vidi-Square Additional film performers: Ann Eysermans, Beatrice Kessi, Elodie Sicard, Ivana Jozic, Lie Anthonissen, Lisbeth Gruwez Commissioned and produced by the European Concert Hall Organisation (ECHO) Productie: Troubleyn|Jan Fabre & BOZAR MUSIC Coproductie: BOZAR THEATRE Support: Ernst von Siemens Kunststiftung | European Commission Sponsor: Het Concertgebouw Amsterdam

3 Jan Fabre is ‘artist in residence’ at Kunstencentrum deSingel (Antwerp, BE) Troubleyn|Jan Fabre is supported by the Government of Flanders, the city and the province of Antwerp.

The text of Ik ben een fout, theaterscripts & theaterteksten (1975-2004), Jan Fabre was published by Meulenhoff/Manteau, 2004 and by L’Arche in 2005: Je Suis une erreur – Cinq pieces, Jan Fabre.

Hilde Van Mieghem is dressed by AF Vandevorst, shoes by Biography. All dancers are dressed by Just in Case.

The film was shot on location in Antwerp. Troubleyn|Jan Fabre would like to thank: St-Willibrordus church, Eddy Borry of café ‘De Kroon’, restaurant ‘De Druiventros’, grocery ‘De Bakkerij’. Eleonora Mercatali is supported by: GAI (Giovani Artisti Italiani, IT)

4 III. TOUR DATES

Thursday 29-nov-07 Athens: world première – The Athens Concert Hall http://www.megaron.gr

Saturday 1-dec-07 Vienna - Wiener konzerhaus http://konzerhaus.at/

Monday 3-dec-07 Amsterdam - Concertgebouw www.thsh.co.uk

Thursday 6-dec-07 Birmingham - Symphony Hall www.thsh.co.uk

Sunday 9-dec-07 Luxemburg - Philharmonie www.philharmonie.lu

Tuesday 11-dec-07 – Centre for Fine Arts www.bozar.be

Saturday 15-dec-07 Cologne - Kölner Philharmonie www.koelner.philharmonie.de

Wednesday 19-dec-07 Paris - Cité de la Musique www.cite-musique.fr

5 IV. INTERVIEWS

Interview with Jan Fabre

I spoke with Jan Fabre in the middle of rehearsals with the dancers and Hilde van Mieghem. Next week, Chantal Akerman will film by night in the vicinity of the Troubleyn/Laboratorium in the Antwerp Seefhoek, the working class district where Jan Fabre was born. After editing, it will be the Ensemble Recherche and Wolfgang Rihm’s turn to rehearse. Then, finally, all the pieces of the puzzle will come together. Jan Fabre is visibly ecstatic about the outstanding combination of artists. On Wolfgang Rihm: “I once put Rihm on the cover of my magazine, Janus, because I thought he was an interesting composer. I discovered his music through Peter Sloterdijk, the writer-philosopher. I worked with the latter, among other things, for my film, The Problem. Sloterdijk is a friend of Wolfgang Rihm’s and the art historian, Hans Belting, who once wrote about my work. Together they constitute the so-called Karlsruhe Schule. It was inevitable that I would one day work together with Wolfgang. There is music throughout the entire performance with Sprechstimme towards the end. Wolfgang Rihm completely analysed the text and has included pronunciation guidelines in his manuscript. He has been very intensely engaged with the project.” On Chantal Akerman: “Chantal and I both had solo exhibitions in Madrid last year. We went to each other’s openings, talked to each other and it clicked. Jeanne Dielman, Toute une nuit, that feeling of night, of loneliness. I saw a nice link between my work and hers and immediately proposed that we do the film together. A great artist.” On Hilde van Mieghem: “I love her intensity, her vivaciousness. I was also looking to insert some distance between myself and the character and thus consciously opted for a woman. She is now turning fifty and has incredible composure and a voice coloured by smoke and booze and that has experienced a lot.”

You wrote Ik ben een fout (I am a Mistake) in 1988. Why are you only now bringing the text to the stage? I was just talking to Hilde van Mieghem about that – and I hear the same thing from my assistants: twenty years ago I was an arrogant, young artist who thought he was going to conquer and change the world. In growing older, that ambition has been focussed more on the work than the outside world. There is now a certain distance. Through all that earnest and hard exterior, a sense of humour has started to appear. A lot of the sentences, however, are still to the point I think. “I am a mistake / Because I hate fashion.” Fashion is like the news. Current affairs is fashion, fashion is current affairs. It has to change every day. And that is a very different attitude, a different kind of entry point or undertaking than that of the artist. A different intensity and relationship towards capitalism and the outside world. Fashion is based on the power of the economy. At the academy, the fashion designers, though they had a lot of tricks, had precious little content in my opinion. They just wanted to earn money quickly. Along the way I did, however, develop respect for certain fashion designers.

6 The I-figure has some divine quality. It thinks of itself as immortal and at the same time kills itself by smoking cigarette after cigarette. It is an ode to smoking. All the more reason to produce the performance precisely now. In some small cities in America it is already forbidden to smoke indoors. The smoker has become the Negro of contemporary society. At airports you have to stand in a tiny booth. The artist who stands there smoking knows he will die of cancer and still keeps on smoking. He wants to choose whether and how he will die and what he does. He stands there coughing, wheezing, sweating but he is not sick. He knows perfectly well what he says, does and wants. In that sense, he is a god. Also because he assumes his work will survive him. The text is a plea for individuality. Making one’s own choices, which are not limited by social rules.

While artists these days are expected to have a certain social commitment. “I am a mistake / Because I destroy my work,” he says. Because he lives in a society where every euro must turn a profit. He destroys his work because he is not satisfied with himself and does not think that everything must be translated into profit. It is self-critique and a critique of what is taking place in the visual arts and in theatre. Not being satisfied with what you see and trying to put things into better focus.

If I understand correctly, you have never used projection before in your large theatre productions.

The gesture of smoking is so small in a hall with two thousand viewers. That’s why I use film too, to capture the poetry of the miniature, of the gesture: the cigarette paper, the striking of a match, the beauty of the streams of smoke in the air, the feeling of ash,... The match becomes a drawing instrument. It becomes charcoal. You can think and draw with it. Film is drawing with light. We begin the performance in the dark and draw with the cigarette. You know: lying in bed smoking as a young kid and drawing in the dark. We’re going to go and film night scenes here in the neighbourhood. As a young kid I used to hide around the corner smoking and run into women sleeping in the street with a cigarette in their mouth. I see the cigarette as a metaphor for the friend who is with you in good and in bad times. You pull out a cigarette because you’re sad, to get warm, because you’re happy and you want to share the joy. You light up a cigarette after sex…

On stage, people are constantly smoking, even the musicians? Yes. Yes, that will be the next step in the working process: asking whether the orchestra and the singers want to smoke. I have a deal with the European concert halls, they know the text.

Interview by Kurt De Boodt (BOZAR MAGAZINE)

7 Interview with Wolfgang Rihm

Wolfgang Rihm tells Bernhard Günther on night, the dream logic of music, Artaud and smoking.

You once told a magazine that your first LP featured a recording of Mussorgsky’s Night on the Bare Mountain. Which musical night pieces – Busoni, Chopin, Debussy, Grieg, Haas, Ives, Mahler, Mozart, Ravel, Sciarrino, Schönberg, Schubert, Schumann, Wagner, ad infinitum – have affected you the most? I have an immense admiration for Busoni’s Nocturne Symphonique Op.43. Debussy’s Nocturnes are some of the most idiosyncratic and finest music ever written. Above all I love the night music from Mahler’s Seventh Symphony and Schumann’s Op.23, because these are major compositions, not because there is something especially nocturnal about them that draws attention to itself. What would that be anyway? Night as the domain of the detached, of attachments that have been thrown off? Perhaps. But one can find “quotations” for this in any good piece of music. Just think of Mozart’s very brief dark moments.

The night has left its mark, including in the titles of several of your works: O Night for baritone and small orchestra (1975), Night Order for strings (1976), Spell, Night Passion for organ (1980), Dawn for orchestra (1985), Nightwatch for voices and instruments (1987/1988), Dark Game for orchestra (1988-1990) … What attractions does the “night” metaphor have for your music? Perhaps it’s the attraction of a reference: this is a kind of dream logic, not so much a comparison with something static or architectural.

In your song cycle umsungen (Glorified in Song) from 1984 you say, with Friedrich Nietzsche: “Hollow, cavern, full of poison and night birds / glorified in song and fearful / alone” – and a little further on: “I look up / there roll seas of light: / - O night, O silence, O deathly quiet sound”/ I see a sign, / from the furthest distance / a constellation sparkling slowly sinks / towards me...” Hölderlin’s nocturnal writings have also impelled you to write music several times. What is it that links you to nocturnal worlds in literature? Their ability to open us up. They create windows that allow us to look out from our fixed predetermined lives into open areas in the domain of the questionable, the uncertain. Music can bring this out. Music arises best in the intermediate zones of ambivalence. There it finds its greatest possible clarity; there it can acquire its own power.

One of the elements in the performance of I am a Mistake, which can be heard on 9 December 2007 at the Rainy Days Festival, is your Musik Séraphin III – with links to Séraphin after Antonin Artaud, composed around 1993-1996. Why Artaud? That is a long story. It’s a cycle of works, an area of work, a day of music that has arisen over many years. The impetus came from reading works by Artaud from the end of the . I saw and still see a great deal of inspirational potential in Artaud’s drama theory writings.

8 What effect does Artaud have with his Theatre of Cruelty, in which he argues against the suggestive interlocking of text, speech and movement on the stage, against drama that represents reality, on your Séraphin – with its sub-title “Attempt at a theatre – instruments /voices / …” – and generally on your vision of musical drama? This applies to this cycle of works, but not to other works. I don’t stick to one single place to draw my inspiration from.

Jan Fabre’s text I am a mistake talks from the perspective of a passionate smoker – something that is not foreign to you. I received his text after I had been working on this piece for a long time, which is in fact another stage in my Artaud-oriented dramatic work. Fabre wanted the text to be recited by an actress. So I created formal and tonal sequences within which this text could be spoken. The “placement” of the text was based on musical standpoints. It was, however, very clear from the beginning that this level of the text appeared relatively late in the work. This decision is connected with my preference for non-symmetrical shapes. As far as smoking is concerned, I am what you would call someone who “smokes for pleasure”. I am very fond of smoking a cigar after meals, and sometimes a pipe. I have a more ambivalent relationship with cigarettes, since I don’t like the smell (which is dominated by burning paper). For that reason I am rather one of those people who benefit from fanatical bigoted smoking bans everywhere. Hopefully the religious fanatics in America will come up with the idea of banning all modern muzak…

What is for you the essence of the image of the night? It is really an image, a sign which, as I said at the start, has a referential nature. In the dark zone. In a state of dissolved attachments. Images falter. This is nature at work or “natura naturans”. From that perspective “night” is the musical- artistic-technical equivalent of “light”: an image to draw you into music. Music remains intangible both in the night and in the light. It remains a process.

Interview by Bernhard Günther

9 Interview with Lucas Vis

Lucas Vis was commissioned to conduct Ensemble Recherche. Vis had not yet worked with Jan Fabre, but knows the man as a phenomenon and has experience both with multidisciplinary theatre and Wolfgang Rihm’s music. He spoke to “Preludium” (Magazine of the Concertgebouw Amsterdam) only after having just received Rihm’s manuscript.

‘I would never have thought of the combination of these two artists myself, but it is certain that it will work. And it is quite something for Rihm to have complete confidence in the project. The annoying thing is that there is a lot to be drawn from Fabre’s ideas, but that it is hard to describe in words what he wants to express. He enjoys tossing the odd stone into the water, but there is always more. Behind every one of Jan Fabre’s ideas lies a deep philosophical thought, which must come across in the work of art itself.’

Growth process ‘The actual work of art comes into being during the rehearsal period. Rihm’s work is then over, but that of Fabre and ourselves, that is an entirely different phase in the project. And I already have the feeling: this is going to be good. I have not yet spoken with either Rihm or Fabre, but that doesn’t matter, because my approach is: just let it happen, it will work itself out. We are going to rehearse for a week in Antwerp and everyone will be present: Fabre, all the stage artists, the set artist, the vocal soloists and of course Ensemble Recherche. I know the musicians very well: their desire to put something together knows no bounds. In other words, it’s going to be a party, that I know for certain. It will grow in situ and if it clicks, and I have every confidence it will, then that process will proceed incredibly quickly.’

Score ‘As a conductor, I like to cast my gaze on the notes first, to see what it’s all about. And this manuscript is effervescent! To begin with, it struck me that Fabre’s text, which resounds freely over the music like a kind of spoken song, makes its first appearance in Rihm’s piece all the way at the back. That is quite remarkable. You have an hour of music, the manuscript consists of 209 pages, and the text only begins on page 192! Before that time, the two baritones do make an appearance but they only produce wordless sounds. They constitute, as it were, instruments within the ensemble. The latter’s constitution is even more conspicuous. With the winds, it is predominantly the lower registers that are called upon – that is where Rihm really lets himself go – in which three musicians alongside the flute, oboe and clarinet also play the bass flute, cor anglais and bass clarinet. The ensemble also consists of a trumpet and a trombone, four different strings, percussion, harp and then last but not least, two pianos. The latter especially lend the whole enormous power. The crazy thing is: the sound of two grand pianos together is so much more than the sum of one plus one. And Rihm’s composition style definitely contributes to this. The pianists have a lot of large chords, for which twenty fingers often seem insufficient. Despite their intensity, the pianos do not have an overly dominating character. The other instruments have just as much to do. It is incredibly active music. The words, So schnell wie möglich, are written above the exposition. Simultaneously with the heavy beat of the pianos and percussions fast patterns resound in the flute and bass clarinet but also the wonderfully long, drawn-out tones of the strings and horns. There is, in other words, a multiplicity of events but one that is incredibly well balanced.’

10 Clarity ‘Why is this music so good? The content is good, the form is good, the hour passes by in a flash, it is delightful to be able to conduct. What I like most about it: the manuscript speaks in clear language. When the musicians see the notes, then they immediately get it. No single note casts doubt. Of course, the musicians at Ensemble Recherche are familiar with understanding new notes but not all composers find that as easy. It is precisely in his clarity that a good composer distinguishes himself. And Rihm: that is the pinnacle. Through his great craftsmanship, he has the ability to say what he has to say.’

Jan Fabre and Wolfgang Rihm ‘The Belgian artist Jan Fabre was introduced to German composer Wolfgang Rihm in Brussels a few years ago. Both knew each other’s work, both moved in the world of ground-breaking (music) theatre. Fabre had already become acquainted with a music theatre piece by Rihm some time before, in which texts by playwright Antonin Artaud had been used. Fabre found the music exciting but the choice of text also attracted him: Artaud, a great but often misunderstood theatre revolutionary from the first half of the twentieth century was in fact Fabre’s long- time great mentor and source of inspiration. Had he found a soul mate in Rihm? That is the question. For although Rihm has also been heavily influenced by Artaud in his own search for ground-breaking music theatre, the conceptual world of the composer appears to be quite different to that of Fabre, as is evident from a telephone conversation with the composer: ‘Is my conception of art different to that of Fabre? Absolutely! Is there anything I have in common with him? Nothing! But in theatre especially, it can be advantageous to make an approach from different directions, and meet each other on unknown territory. As theatre maker, Heiner Müller once said: “You come from different ends, you meet one another, and then you go your separate ways.” And so it might be that Rihm’s music and Fabre’s multidisciplinary art will soon be joined in the project, I am a Mistake. Fabre is an artist who has a proven ability, in numerous widely acclaimed projects, to extract poetry from seemingly non- poetic subjects: millions of shiny dark green beetles convey the baroque allure of a palatial ceiling, gently swaying tea bags create a mystifying reflection over a water well and objects scratched with ballpoint pen represent ‘the blue hour’ of twilight: these are just a few examples. This time the point of departure is a text written by Jan Fabre himself, the monologue of a smoker, an artist who remains faithful to that which will ultimately kill him: I am a mistake because I have too much desire... The anarchy of desire cannot be reconciled with life.’

Fabre says ‘In so doing I issue a plea for the beauty of smoking, a message which, precisely now, now that smoking has come to be seen in society as extremely incorrect, I wish to convey with extra force. Because for me, smoking brings poetry to life.’ And all of a sudden it is about something bigger: about the inevitable longing for beauty and pleasure in life and the freedom to choose them, even if it leads to self-destruction. Rihm says about the music he has written for it: ‘My composition for Fabre is an autonomous piece; I haven’t transposed his poem but merely appended it to my music, more or less at the end, because I love natural, asymmetrical shapes. Actually, you should look at it like this: my composition is the object on which Fabre sticks his beetles!’

Interview by Myrthe van Dijk (musicologist) For Preludium, Magazine of the Royal Concertgebouw and Concertgebouw Amsterdam, December 2007

11 V. BIOGRAPHIES

JAN FABRE Jan Fabre (Antwerp, 1958) is known as one of the most innovative and versatile artists of his day. Over the last 25 years he has produced work as a performance artist, theatre-maker, choreographer, opera-maker, author and visual artist. In 1982, he exploded a bomb under the theatre establishment with his theatre performance This is Theatre as it was to be expected and foreseen. This was confirmed two years later by The Power of Theatrical Madness which he created at the invitation of the Venice Biennale. These two pieces are mentioned in all the literature on contemporary theatre and have toured the world. In the meantime Jan Fabre has grown into one of the most versatile artists on the international scene. He breaks away from the codes of the existing theatre by introducing 'real time performance' — sometimes called 'living installations' — and explores radical choreographic possibilities in order to bring renewal to classical dance. The body in all its forms has been the subject of his investigations from the early Eighties to the present. His writings for theatre, mainly monologues, form an exceptional collection of miniatures with an open and poetic style. His productions Je suis sang at the Cour d'Honneur in Avignon and Tannhäuser at the opera house De Munt/La Monnaie in Brussels achieved wide international success. The invitation to help give artistic shape to the Avignon Festival in 2005 and his recent invitation to stage his own text Requiem für eine Metamorphose for the notorious Felzenreitschule in Salzburg, can undoubtedly be seen as the pinnacle of his performing arts work so far. The quality of his plastic work is equally extraordinary and is at the highest international level. It has been shown several times at Documenta Kassel and the Biennales in Venice, Sao Paulo and Istanbul as well as in many leading museums and galleries. His early plastic work includes a wide variety of experiments, ranging from a major series of blue ballpen drawings, to installations, films and performances, reaching their apotheosis in the Tivoli castle (1990). Metamorphosis and the transition into another stage are two of his major themes. Three works that remain freshly in the memory are Heaven of delight, the permanent ceiling sculpture at the Royal Palace in Brussels, Searching for Utopia, a bronze tortoise in Nieuwpoort, and Totem, a 23-metre-high outdoor sculpture in .

WOLFGANG RIHM Born in 1952 in Karlsruhe, Wolfgang Rihm studied piano and composition from 1968 to 1972 with Eugen Werner Velte at the Musikhochschule of Karlsruhe. He teached there himself from 1973 to 1978, and was nominated professor of composition in 1985. He completed his education with in Cologne during 1972-73, with Klaus Huber in Fribourg-en-Brisgau from 1973 to 1976, and later with Wolfgang Fortner and Humphrey Searle. Since 1970, he participates at Darmstädter Ferienkurse where he teaches since 1978. In 1981 he gave lessons at the Musikhochschule of Munich. In addition to his teaching activities, he has made his mark with numerous lectures, essays and studies on musical topics. Rihm possesses an encyclopaedic knowledge of the musical repertory, which has enabled him to assimilate diverse influences and transform them in his own personal ways. They usually rematerialize as allusive references rather than concrete shapes, although direct quotation is not unknown. Rihm's preferred ‘ancestors’, apart from Bruckner and Mahler, include Beethoven, Schubert, Schumann and Brahms, the Schoenberg of the freely atonal works, Berg and Webern, Janácek and Varèse.

12 Rihm has always accepted the traditional concept of the musical work as a closed, complete entity, formulated once and for all, and with it the idea of fixed form. He has given this work-concept a personal nuance in recent years, however, by exploring ways of proliferating a central, germinal idea. In practice this means that a composition, once formulated, can be illuminated from several different aspects, in the process becoming the matrix for new works. The process combines arrangement, variation, paraphrase and troping – even contrafactum – with new material. One such matrix is – Et nunc II for wind and percussion (1993). Returning to the material for the first time, Rihm grafted a solo piano part onto it, producing a kind of Konzertstück for piano, wind and percussion, entitled Sphere (1992–4). In later reworkings the same matrix, – Et nunc II, used in part or in its entirety, served as the basis for a group of orchestral studies (Vers une symphonie fleuve), studies for a future work that as yet exists only as a seed. In a sense they provide a concrete demonstration of Rihm's characteristic belief that the work is identical with the search for the work. Gifted with exceptional energy and productive facility, Rihm has contributed at least one work to practically every recognized genre of art-music except confessional liturgical music. Within an output of such breadth it is to be expected that certain focal points will form within it, certain recurrent preoccupations, some centring on a particular genre, such as the string quartet, some on a concept, such as the cycle of pieces called Chiffre and its successors. A number of the focal points in Rihm's oeuvre constitute responses to certain outstanding writers and thinkers: the most obvious example is Nietzsche, whose late poems Rihm has set to music in a variety of ways, but others are Celan, Rimbaud, the German playwright Heiner Müller and Antonin Artaud. Artaud's inspiration has been especially intense and has had a powerful influence on Rihm's dramatic imagination. The stage works form the nodal points in Rihm's oeuvre. They reflect a consistent development from relatively conventional operatic beginnings towards a quasi- abstract music theatre without text or predetermined plot. In his two chamber operas Rihm used librettos in the traditional sense. With his next three works for the stage, which he does not designate operas, he himself took principal charge of the construction of the text and the dramaturgy as a whole. For Die Hamletmaschine he adapted a text by Heiner Müller. The result, a series of scenes based around the characters of Hamlet and Ophelia, but incorporating a wide range of additional references and associations, realizes the vision of a total theatre, operating with elements of opera, oratorio, melodrama, spoken theatre, narration and reportage. Rihm is a great admirer of Antonin Artaud. Three of Rihm's stage works are the fruit of an engagement, now well into its second decade, with the ideas and imagery of the world of the French theatrical visionary Antonin Artaud. The first stage in this preoccupation was the full-length ballet Tutuguri (1980–2), whose rhythmic vehemence gives it a position in Rihm's oeuvre comparable to that of The Rite of Spring in Stravinsky's. The second stage was the music theatre piece Die Eroberung von Mexico (1987–91), based on Artaud's scenario of the same title and his conception of ‘Seraphim Theatre’. Rihm has very concrete ideas on the future of music theatre, the main question in which is, “Is it possible to have a new musical theatre with a genuinely new musical language?”

CHANTAL AKERMAN Chantal Akerman (born June 6, 1950) is a Belgian filmmaker and director based in Paris, who is known for her deconstructive style and pessimistic humour. Her films represent her observations of identity, sexuality, and politics. Chantal Akermans's parents are Holocaust-survivors from Poland. She dissociated itself also in the picture language and technology at first radically from the usual

13 maintaining telling cinema. Film installation From the OTHER side (2002) was presented on documenta 11. Chantal Akerman's films of the 1970s and 80s made a significant contribution to cinema and feminist film theory. At that time her work combined a radical feminist narrative content with the questioning modes of address. In her insistence on developing a rigorous avant-garde procedural aesthetic, Akerman was influenced by the work of Michael Snow. She has described his film as working "exclusively on the language of cinema without any story or sentiment... it is language itself without the possibilities of identification". Akerman's work can be considered as a meditation on the problematic nature of the representational abilities of cinema. Many of her works contain images that are presented in unbroken takes from a fixed perspective, and her films are often marked by the lack of conventional cinematic devices such as dialogue or plot. Often set in real time, her films display a lack of hierarchy in the way in which the images are presented; the gradual accumulation of small details and everyday observations in the films create a language of great emotional power. Akerman's work was the subject of a major retrospective at The Centre Pompidou, Paris in 2004. She has had solo exhibitions at Frith Street Gallery, London, Jewish Museum, New York, Jeu De Paume, Paris and the Walker Art Centre among others.

HILDE VAN MIEGHEM Hilde Van Mieghem started her career as an actress, working both in and abroad. She starred in such international productions as Gerrit van Elst’s Blonde Dolly, Helmut Dietl’s Rossini, Oskar Roelher’s Angst and Steven Soderbergh’s Kafka. At home, she worked with filmmakers like Chantal Akerman, Hugo Claus, Stijn Coninx, , , Erik Van Looy and Jan Verheyen. As a director, she made the award-winning short The Sugar Bowl (De suikerpot) and The Kiss (De kus) her feature film debut starring her daughter Marie Vinck. Love Belongs to Everyone (Dennis van Rita) is her second feature.

ENSEMBLE RECHERCHE The Ensemble Recherche is one of the most distinguished ensembles for new music. With almost four hundred premieres to its credit since it was founded in 1985, the ensemble has made a substantial contribution to the development of contemporary chamber and ensemble music. Consisting of nine soloists, the ensemble has its very own dramaturgical profile and ranks highly on the international music scene. Apart from its many concert activities, the Ensemble Recherche also takes part in musical theatre projects, does productions for radio and film, gives courses for instrumentalists and composers and lets young talents watch its rehearsals. The repertoire of the ensemble begins with the classics of the late 19th century, taking in the French Impressionists, the and the Expressionists and on to the Darmstadt School, French Spectralism and today's avant-garde experiments. A further interest of the Ensemble Recherche is the contemporary view of music prior to 1700. Over forty CDs are proof of the vast scope of its repertoire. The Ensemble Rrecherche has a self-governing organisational form. In its hometown, , it has its own concert series, organized by the Friends of the ensemble recherche. In addition, the Ensemble Recherche is subsidised by the City of Freiburg and the State of Baden-Württemberg.

14 LUCAS VIS He is considered a specialist for contemporary music. He has worked with important composers such as John Cage, Mauricio Kagel, Karlheinz Stockhausen, Theo Loevendie, Louis Andriessen and many others. Lucas Vis has conducted numerous premieres. Vis began his musical career as a cellist. After winning a prize in a conducting course at the Mozarteum in Salzburg, he developed increasingly as a multifaceted conductor. From 1976 to 1979 he was principal conductor of the 'Nederlands Ballet Orkest', where he conducted performances of both classical and modern ballet; as guest conductor he has led all Dutch orchestras, such as the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, Residentie Orchestra, various radio orchestras and several ensembles covering a wide-ranging repertoire. From 1988 to 1996 Lucas Vis was the principal conductor of the 'Noordhollands Philharmonisch Orkest' in Haarlem, where he appeared on the podium for works from many different eras. At the Netherlands Opera he has conducted not only operas by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Giacomo Puccini, Ferruccio Busoni, Bruno Maderno and Giuseppi Verdi, but also many premieres by such Dutch composers as Otto Ketting, Theo Loevendi and Guus Jansen. While working as an assistant to from 1967 to 1973 he was awarded the Koussevitzky Tanglewood Composition Prize in 1971. From 1998 until 2005 he was principle of the Amsterdam Conservatory ('Conservatorium van Amsterdam'). Since 2003 he is professor in conducting at named school of music. At the same time he is guest conductor of numerous European orchestras’, ensembles and leading masterclasses in conducting. www.lucasvis.nl

MUSICIANS

Martin Fahlenbock He completed his studies under Prof. Karlheinz Zöller at the Musikhochschule Hamburg in 1986, with distinction, with the concert examination; attended the master classes of Jean-Pierre Rampal, Peter Lukas Graf and André Jaunet; intense collaboration with the Ensemble Modern from 1984-1987; deputy solo flautist with the Philharmonische Orchester Freiburg from 1987-1992; flautist with the Ensemble Recherche since 1991.

Jaime Gonzalez He studied oboe under Hans Elhorst, Thomas Indermühle and Heinz Holliger; won several prizes in competitions in Asti (Italy), Bayreuth and Mannheim, and the Music Prize of the Commerzbank Stiftung; he performed, among others, under Peter Gülke and with the cellist Yo-Yo Ma as chamber music partner in the Silk Road Project; teacher at the International Oboe Course in Xavea (Spain); member of the Ensemble Recherche since 2000.

Shizuyo Oka He studied clarinet under Michel Arrignon and bass clarinet under Jean-Noel Crocq at the CNSM in Paris and completed his studies with three First Prize awards for clarinet, bass clarinet and chamber music; won the Valentino Bucchi Competition in Rome in 1992 and in Tokyo in 1995; member of the Silk Road Ensemble with Yo-Yo Ma since 2000; member of the Ensemble Recherche since 1998.

Melise Mellinger She studied violin in Freiburg under Wolfgang Marschner and in Amsterdam under Hermann Krebbers; played in the Frankfurt opera house orchestra and in the Museum Orchestra for four years; she has taught at the Darmstadt Summer Course for New Music since summer 2000; extensive concert performances and

15 numerous CD recordings, including 's La lontananza nostalgia utopica futura; founder-member of the Ensemble Recherche.

Barbara Maurer She studied under Attila Balogh and Ulrich Koch at the Musikhochschule Freiburg, at the Accademia Chigiana in Siena, and under D. Takeno in London on a DAAD scholarship; won the Kranichstein Music Prize in 1986; collaborated with many local and foreign contemporary music ensembles; soloist in numerous first performances; teacher at the Darmstadt Summer Course for New Music since 1998; member of the Ensemble Recherche since 1989.

Asa Akerberg She comes from Stockholm; studied under Frans Helmersson at the Sveriges Radios Musikinstitut, at the Hochschule der Künste and the Karajan Akademie in Berlin; she was solo cellist with the Stockholm opera house (1983-1989) and the Västeras Sinfonietta (as of 1995); she was a permanent member of the Kammarensemblen and the Stockholms Barockorkester, among others; cellist with the Ensemble Recherche since January 2006.

Christian Dierstein He studied under Bernhard Wulff at the Freiburg Musikhochschule and under Gaston Sylvestre in Paris; winner of numerous competitions, holder of a scholarship from the Studienstiftung des deutschen Volkes and the Akademie Schloß Solitude ; together with Marcus Weiss and Yukiko Sugawara he formed the ; focus on non-European music and free improvisation; solo concerts throughout Europe in the Rising Stars series; own compositions for radio plays and theatre; radio and CD recordings; head of the percussion class at the Musikhochschule in Basel; member of the Ensemble Recherche since 1988.

Klaus Steffes-Holländer He studied piano at the Musikhochschule in Cologne under Aloys Kontarsky and in Paris under Claude Helffer and Gérard Frémy, on a DAAD scholarship. Also trained under Paul Badura-Skoda; he has won awards and prizes including the Rotterdam Gaudeamusconcours, for his interpretation of Stockhausen's 10th piano piece in Girona, and First Prize in the contemporary piano music competition in Sitges/Barcelona; member of the Ensemble Recherche since 1995.

Jean-Pierre Collot He was born in Metz, studied under Jean-Claude Pennetier, Christian Ivaldi and Jean Koerner at the CNSM in Paris finishing with three First Prizes in piano, chamber music and piano accompaniment; his focus is music with a particular interest in Stockhausen, Messiaen, Cage; soloist in Paris with the Ensemble Intercontemporain (1993-1999), TM+ and Ensemble Fa (member from 1994-2002); first performances of works by numerous composers (including Jean Luc Hervé and Brice Pauset; member of the Ensemble Recherche since September 2003.

GUEST MUSICIANS

László Hudacsek Percussionist László Hudacsek was born in Hungary. He has been a soloist with the Berlin Symphony Orchestra, Bruckner Orchestra Linz, Ensemble Resonanz Hamburg, Slovak Radio Symphony Orchestra, Stuttgart Chamber Orchestra under conductors James Conlon, Heinz Holliger, Péter Eötvös, Mauricio Kagel, Roland Kluttig, Zsolt Nagy, Karlheinz Stockhausen, etc. He completed his Concert Exam

16 with honors, and subsequently studied percussion in Debrecen with József Vrana and in Karlsruhe with Professor Isao Nakamura and Prof. Péter Eötvös in his ensemble for new music. From 1990-93 he was percussionist with the Pécser Symphony. From 1994-2000 he was an assistant and musical partner to professor Nakamura. He has played with the Saarland Radio Orchestra, Ensemble Modern (Frankfurt), Ensemble Recherche (Freiburg), Ensemble Musikfabrik (Cologne), Ensemble Cologne, Stockhausen Ensemble, Israeli Contemporary Players, Klangforum Vienna, etc. László Hudacsek received top honors at various competitions and foundations, e.g.- 1994/96/98- Darmstadt Summer Courses; 1995-97- for the project "Percussion and Electronics -New Media", the graduation scholarship of the state of Baden-Wuerttemberg; 1996- winner of the "13th Japan wind and Percussion Competition” - Tokyo; and 2003- guest artist at ZKM, for the realization of the vibraphone solo piece RAYS by Karl Heinz Stockhausen.

Andrew Digby Hailing originally from Sheffield - studied at the Royal northern college of music in Manchester and worked in London before moving to Freiburg in 1991 to study composition with Mathias Spahlinger. Since 1995 he works as a freelance trombonist in Germany and elsewhere. He is a member of ensemble Ascolta (Stuttgart) and the Composers Slide Quartet and enjoys close working contacts with diverse composers including Stockhausen, Spahlinger and Klaus Huber.

Markus Schwind He studied in Mainz, in Paris and with Markus Stockhausen and Peter Eötvös in Cologne. As a guest player of Ensemble Recherche, Klangforum Vienna, Musikfabrik and Ensemble Modern he regularly plays in European festivals for contemporary music. With these groups, and orchestras like the Radio Symphony Orchestra Berlin (RSB), he participates in CD- and radio productions for the German radio and labels such as Deutsche Grammophon and EMI. He is a member of the Stuttgart-based ensemble Ascolta. As a soloist Markus Schwind appeared in the Berlin Academy of the Arts and in Japan at the Takefu International Music Festival.

Beate Maria Anton Beate Maria Anton studied harp at the Musikhochschule Heidelberg-Mannheim from 1996-2002 for her diploma in orchestral studies. She did further study at the music colleges in Munich, Germany with Professor Helga Storck, where she got her postgraduate Artists' Diploma (Meisterklassendiplom) in 2004, and at the Conservatoire de Musique et d'Art Dramatique in Antibes, France with Elizabeth Fontan-Binoche where she graduated with the highest qualification, the "Medaille d'Or à l'Unanimité avec Félicitations du Jury". Already during her second semester in Mannheim, she got a 2 year contract to work at the Opera House Orchestra, Nationaltheater Mannheim. Since then she has done extra work for many renowned orchestras including the State Opera in Stuttgart, the Opera house in Frankfurt, the Radio Symphony Orchestra of the Saarland Broadcasting Company (Radio Sinfonie Orchester des Saarländishen Rundfunks), the Radio Orchestra of South West German Radio (SWR) in Kaiserslautern, the German State Philharmonic Orchestra of the Rhineland Palatinate. Much of her work includes the performance of modern music, chamber music and performing solo concertos. Beate has won many prizes and scholarships and made numerous radio and CD recordings.

Ulrich Schneider Ulrich Schneider (doublebass) was born 1967 in Basel (Switzerland). He studied in Freiburg and at the Mozarteum in Salzburg. After his Engagement as Principal Bassplayer at the Brandenburgischen Philharmonie Potsdam he became member

17 of the Deutsches Symphonie-Orchesters Berlin. Since 1994 Ulrich Schneider is guest artist with Ensemble Recherche.

DANCERS

Manon Avermate Born in Antwerp on April 12, 1983. After finishing high school in Latin and Greek she decided to take on a more artistic direction: dance. Movement as a form of communication, film and multimedia. She spent one year at the Higher Institute of dance in Lier, Belgium, and four years in Amsterdam at the Theater school. During this period, she made her own projects: two of them were short films and three of them dance productions. They were played in Belgium and in the Netherlands. She took part in ‘point to point’, an Asian-European reunion in Poland, where she had the opportunity to dance with Damian Munoz, Kenzo Kusada, Maja Delak, Chiyo Ogino, Vloeistof, Iris Bouche and Jan Fabre. In April 2007, she was invited by the modern dance company, Vis Motrix, to make a play as guest choreographer with other dancers from the company. The premiere of this play will be in February 2008 and will be held in Thessaloniki.

Eleonora Mercatali She was born in Italy in 1980. She began her professional dance studies at the Opera Theatre Ballet School in Rome in 1992, then continued her training in jazz and contemporary dance with various teachers such as Sacha Ramos, Sten Rudstrom in Italy and abroad. From 2003 to 2006 Eleonora attended professional dance training in Laban Dance Centre in London, getting a BA First Class Honour Degree in Dance Theatre. In 2005 she worked for an internship with Societas Raffaello Sanzio (It) and William Forsythe in Avignon Festival. In the same year she graduated at the Academy of Fine Arts in Rome. As a choreographer, her main interest, Eleonora presented various creations in London and in Germany. In 2007 she co founded DanzAterlierStudio based in Turin, with dancer Elena Rolla, with the aim of offering contemporary training to young and professional dancers and actors.

Sylvia Camarda She was born in 1978 in , she studied in Cannes (France) and at the London Contemporary dance school, she worked with les Ballets C. de la B. and then created her own dance company Missdeluxedanceco! in Luxembourg, presented her first dance solo in Avignon aux Hivernales. She retook 'Je suis sang’ with Jan Fabre for le Palais des Papes in 2005, left the Troubleyn company for an experience of more then a year with Cirque du Soleil Delirium in the States then rejoined the Fabre dancers for Requiem für eine Metamorphose as a co- producer and a dancer and worked with Royston Maldoom as an assistant choreographer on his community project in Luxembourg.

Tawny Andersen She was born in Luxembourg in 1979 but grew up in Toronto, Canada where she completed her studies in RAD ballet, modern and contemporary dance techniques, and worked with many of the country’s renowned choreographers. In 2001 she relocated to Europe to continue her research into varying aesthetics and ideologies in contemporary theatre and performance. Based in Brussels for the past five years, Tawny regularly travels around the continent to work with different choreographers on project-based creations. She has also recently begun to work in film and video. Tawny first collaborated with Troubleyn|Jan Fabre in 2004, attending the Ecole des Maitres master class series and then taking part in

18 the creation of Tannhäuser (2004), the retake of Je Suis Sang (2005, 2007) and most recently the creation of I am a Mistake (2007).

SINGERS

Matthias Horn German baritone Matthias Horn studied church music and singing with Wolfgang Neumann, Eva Marguerre and Gisela Rühmert in Heidelberg. As he adores Bach, he sang amongst others the Johannes-Passion in the Nicolai Church of Leipzig, the Mass in B minor in the Freiburg Concert Hall and the Matthäus-Passion in the Philharmonic Concert Hall in St. Petersburg. He sang with conductors such as Frieder Bemius, Hermann Max and Thomas Hengelbrock and in various ensembles like the Orlando di Lasso-Ensemble, the ensemble Weser Renaissance and Musica fiata. Apart from this Matthias Horn has appeared in many festivals in new music and co-operated amongst others with Luciano Berio, Hans Zender and Peter Eotvos. Out of numerous premieres in which he participated, As I crossed A bridge of dreams by Peter Eotvos (Donaueschingen, 1999) should be mentioned in particular. With pianist Christoph Ullrich he gives Lieder recitals. Their partly musical-literature programs were noted several times by broadcasts.

Johannes M. Kösters Johannes M. Koesters received his professional training at the Musikhochschule Frankfurt am Main, where he worked with Martin Gründler from 1975 to 1980. A scholarship from the DAAD allowed him to study at the opera school in Bloomington, Indiana, USA, where he worked with Margret Harshaw on interpretation in 1981. He later studied with Rolf Sartorius in Wiesbaden. In 1978 and 1981, the young baritone was a prize winner at the international voice competitions in Geneva and San Luis Potosi, Mexico. Since 1986 Mr. Kösters has been teaching voice at the Hochschule für Musik und Darstellende Kunst in Mannheim. The foundations for Kösters’ musicality, noted by so many conductors and colleagues, were laid at a very young age when as a child he sang for many years in the Regensburg boy chorus. For Kösters, the 1987 production of Hamletmaschine by Wolfgang Rihm was the first great challenge of contemporary vocal literature. Ever since then the works of this important German composer have been one of the focal points of Mr. Köster’s career, which becomes further apparent when one looks at the world premieres and premieres that followed in operas, concerts and Lieder. In one dedication to the baritone, Mr. Rihm expresses his admiration for the singer, stating: “ … music, sung music, is for Kösters mental speaking which he knows how to combine with emotion: a modern artist in the best sense. His incredible wealth of experience with contemporary repertoire make him one of the most prominent vocal artists for contemporary classical music in Germany”. In 1993 Kösters first worked with Claudio Abbado with the Berlin Philharmonics. The production staged Rihm’s Hölderlin Fragments (also available on CD (Sony)). Further productions with the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra followed, among these a Lieder recital which included five world premieres based on Büchner texts, several commissioned works by Abbado for the Berlin Festival in 1996, as well as a production in which Kösters starred as the lead in Rhim’s opera Jakob Lenz, a coproduction of the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra and the Grand Opera of Lyon in 1997.

19 VI. CONTACTS

BOZAR PRESS

Centre for Fine Arts – Press office Rue Ravensteinstraat 23 B – 1000 Brussels F. + 32 (0)2 507 85 15 [email protected]

Eve-Marie Vaes Press Officer BOZAR MUSIC T. +32 (0)2 507 84 27 T. +32 (0)475 75 38 72 [email protected]

Lena Dierckx Press officer T. +32 (0)2 507 83 91 T. +32 (0)476 971.171 [email protected]

PHOTOS

Press photos of Jan Fabre, Wolgang Rihm, Chantal Akerman, Hilde Van Mieghem, Lucas Vis, Ensemble Recherche are available for download on our press website : www.bozar.be/presse (go to the date of the event).

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