Sounds & Clouds

The project “Sounds & Clouds” embarked on a search for new performance formats for ancient, classical and new music. The project contrasted two very different ways of artistically exploring nature – on one hand, in the traditional, European and Asian representations of nature through music, and on the other, the recent global trend toward “urban gardening”. It combined four of Vivaldi’s concerti that are based on portrayals of nature with a composition by the Japanese artist Toshio as a setting for these concerts. The production was supplemented by a Surround Sound installation and electronic music based on authentic bird calls, created by the Italian artist Letizia Renzini. The concert designer Folkert Uhde designed each performance venue to resemble a fantasy garden, through which the visitors could move freely. The interior design, which allowed visitors to physically experience the music, and the combination of ancient, new and electronic music introduced a heterogeneous audience to novel experiences of reception. The Frankfurt-based Max Planck Institute for Empirical Aesthetics, founded in 2013, is cooperating with the Institute of Musicology at the University of Potsdam to evaluate the impact of the international project. The goal is to gain detailed information about the aesthetic experience of the audience and its flow of attention.

Artistic director: Jeremias Schwarzer
Director: Folkert Uhde
Composer: Toshio Hosokawa (JP)
Orchestra: Holland Baroque Society (NL)
Performance: Letizia Renzini (IT)

Additional Venues:

Flandern-Festival, Kortrijk: 7.5.2015; Muziekgebouw aan’t IJ Amsterdam (NL): 20.10.2015; Montforter Zwischentöne, Feldkirch: 3.7.2016