Un/Ruhe – Freeplay 2016

The main event of Freeplay 2016 was the violin concert “Still” by the contemporary British composer Rebecca Saunders. The performance has been developed by Saunders herself together with the violinist Carolin Widmann, dancers from the company Sasha Waltz & Guests and musicians from the Young German Philharmonic Orchestra. Saunders was composing new sections which invited the artists to interact within the existing composition. Soloists in the orchestra became dancers, while the dancers studied the musicians’ movements and interpreted them.
The presentation of two more works offered unconventional approaches to the music, for example, by reversing the perspective of the listeners and placing them in the limelight. The “Lulu Suite”, written in 1934 by the Austrian composer Alban Berg, has been performed first. The Suite introduced the audience to Berg’s tonal language which consists of the combined influences of Schönberg’s atonality, twelve-tone composition and late Romanticism. The concert concluded with the prelude to “Tristan and Isolde” by Richard Wagner.
The “Freeplay” concert format was created by the musicians of the Young German Philharmonic Orchestra. It offers composers a carte blanche for developing unconventional ideas and testing experimental performances practices. Freeplay 2016 had its premiere during the Kunstfest Weimar followed by a later performance at Radialsystem V in Berlin.

Musical director: Sylvain Cambreling (FR)
Composer: Rebecca Saunders (GB)
Soloists: Carolin Widmann, Ana Durlovski (MK)
Stage design: Jochen Sandig
Companies / ensembles / orchestras: Sasha Waltz & Guests, Young German Philharmonic Orchestra