Rooms of Resonance

What is a life? What is a composition? How does one express experiences and wishes in music and text? Based on these questions, four artists will enter the rooms of resonance of a literary-musical dialogue. The composers Iris ter Schiphorst and Milica Djordjević and the authors Felicitas Hoppe and Anja Kampmann will exchange thoughts on a certain topic in writing and music over a period of several months. This “transmedial correspondence” will result in a decelerated form of dialogue that will allow them to explore the shared boundary between the media of music and language. The project, jointly organised by the ensemble ascolta and the Literaturhaus Stuttgart, emphasises the independence of the arts, the autonomy of positions, as well as the tension and demarcation that are required to form relationships of proximity. In this case, music and literature enter a relationship – in resonance. The ensemble ascolta will perform individual pieces of dialogue in order to make them audible, and will actively accompany the process, but with restraint. In the end, the project will culminate in a two-evening performance which conveys the artists’ spaces of communication and makes their exchange tangible. Iris ter Schiphorst and Felicitas Hoppe will develop a dual biography in the form of text and music which highlights their mutual projection surfaces, i.e. to fulfil ter Schiphorst’s wish to write (“when you write, everything becomes bright!”) and Hoppe’s wish to be a composer and conductor (“to finally play instead of speak!”). The stories of two very different lives are told which allow each to share the other’s ability to artistically perceive the world. Based on the triad of “rhythm, sound, pause”, the artists Milica Djordjević and Anja Kampmann will both become acquainted with the city of Belgrade as they contemplate origin and migration, new and old boundaries, and identities. In 2020 Kampmann will spend a month in Belgrade, Milica Djordjević’s place of birth. The radio journalist Iris Drögekamp will be responsible for the dramaturgy and stage direction of the performances.

Artistic director: Florian Hoelscher
Artistic co-director: Stefanie Stegmann
Project manager: Eva Maria Müller
Composers: Milica Djordjević and Iris ter Schiphorst
Authors: Felicitas Hoppe, Anja Kampmann
Musicians: ensemble ascolta
Dramaturgy/stage direction: Iris Drögekamp

Staged concerts/melodramas: Schwetzinger Festspiele, Schwetzingen: Mai 2022; Rainy Days Philharmonie, Luxembourg: November 2022; Liederhalle Stuttgart, Stuttgart: June 2023; Haus der Musik, Innsbruck: June 2023