VOCATIONS – a multilingual, transdisciplinary reinvention of the art song in Berlin
25.04.2023
In the new transdisciplinary series VOCATIONS, starting in April 2023, Haus für Poesie celebrates poetry and music by reinventing the historically European-centered art song from a multilingual and international perspective. VOCATIONS combines concerts and readings in a unique way, commissions new pieces for world premieres in fall 2023, and lays the groundwork for transdisciplinary artistic community building.
The kick-off is a workshop at Schloss Wiepersdorf, taking place from April 23 to 28: here, eight composers and poets will begin their work – collaboratively from the start – on new pieces for singers and instrumentalists in more than six languages.
Text and music are then further developed side-by-side and in close creative exchange by the following artists in pairs of two: Nail Doğan and Cenk Ergün, Felipe Sáez Riquelme and VictorPiano (Víctor Ernesto Gutiérrez Cuiza), Cia Rinne and Catalina Rueda, Avrina Prabala-Joslin and Sol-i So. The majority of these participating artists live in Berlin or Hamburg.
Salon evenings on October 9 and November 16 at Akademie der Künste, Berlin offer the opportunity to experiment in an informal setting; at the same time, they open up the working process and encourage exchange and new impulses from Berlin's international music and poetry scene.
Premieres of the new pieces will take place on October 26 and December 21 at Hei-mathafen Neukölln. They will also comprise readings in addition to two new cycles of art songs.
The project was conceived by Tomás Cohen, a Chilean poet living in Berlin. He is also the artistic director. Together with Katharina Schultens, Haus für Poesie, he curates the series. VOCATIONS is held in cooperation with JUNGE AKADEMIE, Akademie der Künste, Berlin, Cultural Foundation Schloss Wiepersdorf and Heimathafen Neukölln.
By opening up the genre, VOCATIONS also explicitly addresses a new and young audience and introduces them to poetry and art songs.
The title of the project refers to the connection of two aspects which are crucial to the project's approach: on the one hand the artistic ambition to work in a professional and transdisciplinary way in the sense of a vocational training and on the other hand vocation in the sense of a calling to reach more people with one’s own artistic work.
Sunday – Friday, April 23 – 28 Workshop
Schloss Wiepersdorf, Bettina-von-Arnim-Str. 13, 14913 Wiepersdorf
Monday and Thursday, October 9 and November 16 Salon Evenings
Akademie der Künste, Hanseatenweg 10, 10557 Berlin ·
Thursday, October 26 and December 21 Premiers
Heimathafen Neukölln, Karl-Marx-Str. 141, 12043 Berlin
VOCATIONS is an event of Haus für Poesie in cooperation with JUNGE AKADEMIE, Akademie der Künste, Berlin, Cultural Foundation Schloss Wiepersdorf and Heimathafen Neukölln and is funded by is funded by Senatsverwaltung für Kultur und Gesellschaftlichen Zusammenhalt des Landes Berlin.