...alive: Nature and Music

After “beginning” in 2021, the emerging theme of the laboratory and research phase in 2022 had become … alive: Nature and Music which also offered the opportunity to develop creativity in the aftermath of the flood disaster. The ideas and concepts developed with local partners concretized in two performance phases in 2023 as the second TRANSIENT Impulse Festival.

The artistic works of both performance phases mirrored each other: the places that were played in nature and in public space in June could already be seen in April as artistic reflections in film installations and objects; musical works that were part of the performances lasting several hours in the installations in April could then also be experienced in June at the natural places. The overall picture of the diverse perspectives and impressions was thus created for the audience and participants in the combination of both indoor and outdoor performance phases.

For TRANSIENT Indoor, a unique hybrid organism consisting of several interconnected spaces between art exhibition, concert and performance with music by contemporary composers and installations by Chiharu Shiota, Wiebke Pöpel and Robert Eugler was created at the Academy for Teacher Training in Kronenburg.

TRANSIENT Interdisciplinary Research Ensemble: Neus Estarellas Calderón, piano; Vanessa Porter and Vera Seedorf, percussion; Olivia Stahn, soprano; Jeremias Schwarzer, recorder and artistic direction; Vincent Stange, electronics; Maxine Troglauer, trombone (Junior Fellow 2023)

Works by Younghi Pagh- Paan, Thibault Bru, Malika Kishino, John Cage, George Crumb, Vincent Stange and others.

→ View TRANSIENT Indoor

While the artistic reflection of the natural outdoor spaces into the performance situations and their interactions with the musical works played were in the foreground in TRANSIENT Indoor in April, the places themselves in nature and in public space took on an independent and central role in the TRANSIENT Outdoor performance phase in June. The artists of the TRANSIENT Interdisciplinary Research Ensemble have already begun in 2022 to develop joint projects with the communities of the three places Bad Münstereifel, Blankenheim and Nettersheim on the theme …alive: Nature and Music, which have since been further planned and expanded. At each place, therefore, between June 15 and 18, an artistic work specifically grown there and created for it will take place. The boundaries between the audience and the musicians dissolve, and nature itself, through the cycle of the seasons, changes in an unforeseen way what was begun many months ago. In this way, the landscape, the sounds and the resonant relationships on site play an essential role in shaping the events.

→ View TRANSIENT Outdoor