Transmissions: Short stories - music and text

Jan Gerdes | Piano
Verena Stauffer | Text

Pianistic miniatures by contemporary composers are in dialogue with contemporary texts by the Austrian author Verena Stauffer in this festival programme.

Ticket price: 10 € | 7 € | 6 € (Berlinpass)
Ticket reservation: 49 (0)30 / 56 70 29 30

Klavierwerkstatt Goecke und Fahrenholz
Prenzlauer Allee 36, Berlin

Piano miniatures by classics of the avant-garde, such as Boulez, as well as short pieces by younger and young composers, not least the extraordinarily exciting Berlin scene, can be heard. Short piano stories - music and text" also deals with the exciting question of how contemporary composing for the piano expresses itself in the specifically miniature-like, in which great drafts of form do not play a role, but rather the capturing of the perhaps fragile moment, the capture of an immediate impression, a perhaps also fleeting event. Is there something specifically miniature about all these artistic expressions and what could it be?

The short texts by the Austrian author Verena Stauffer contrast with this. Read by herself, they enter into dialogue with the music, counterpoint it and sketch images, emotions or thoughts as linguistic expressions of a lyrical ego and attempt to depict parts of a scientific cosmos in which they transform knowledge into a poetic linguistic level.

Piano pieces by: Andreas Staffel, Markus Bongartz, William Byrd, Zeynep Gedizlioglu, Sidney Corbett, Massive Attack, Hilda Paredes, Sandeep Baghwati, György Kurtag, Jan Gerdes, Michael Denhoff, Reinhard Febel, John Farah, Roger Trefousse

Accessibility:
visual impairment and blindness / motor impairment / cognitive impairment

"Wanken. Schwanken im Selbst. Korunde. Taumeln im Angriff. Rückzug in sich.
Ein funkelndes Selbst, ein Photonen-Ich.
Die zerrüttete Geschichte wirft sich auf die Knie. Die Zeit, dieses Gerüppel, ein Stein.
Abgeholt von Schappa-Schappa, im heilen Arrangement der Heuristik.
Die Jahre, die große Gemeinsamkeit, Nachbarn teilen sie, schlafend in der Inflation.
Buchhalterisches Separieren der Hinsichten, das Zugleich nicht erkennen,
Verbindungen fressen wie gespaltene Äpfelchen.
Plötzliche Eingebung des Himmels, da ist nur dies eine vollkommen im Inneren der Sterne,
im Selbst, es ist heiß und wärmt der anderen viele.
Ein ganzer Kometenschweif, ein Fliegen unbekannter Riesenmoleküle.
Das Wissen der Sterne, in Därmen.
Das Meer, ein dunkler Fliederbusch, ein Frühling, das Eis.
Was ist ein Niedergang? Ein Bücken.
Einer redet sich davon, quatscht im Mus der Aprikosen,
verteilt sich im Auflauf des Gesprochenen, versteht und ist nie verstanden.
Die erste Ousia, dann eine Schneeflocke, eine letzte Frucht"
(Verena Stauffer)

Jan Gerdes

Jan Gerdes studied piano at the conservatories of Hanover and Detmold with the professors Kurt Bauer, Nerine Barett and Renate Kretschmar-Fischer. An international concert career has taken the award-winning artist to many countries in Europe, South America and the Far East. He has made CD, television, film and radio recordings for the NDR, WDR, MDR, HR, RB, ORF, Radio France, Deutschland Radio Berlin as well as for the labels Ambitus and Edition Zeitklang.

Gerdes has collaborated with some of the leading contemporary composers such as Karlheinz Stockhausen, Wolfgang Rihm, Helmut Lachenmann and Peter Ruzicka and has premiered many other composers of the young and middle generation.

As a border crosser between classical music, new music, electronics, performance and theatre, he founded the improvisational composition projects EROL, KAUM and Mutant TP in 2004 and is currently working with Berlin techno producer Frank Bogdanowitz alias Dr. Nojoke on the electro-acoustic project r a n d.

Jan Gerdes teaches piano and contemporary music at the University of Potsdam and the Hochschule für Musik Hanns Eisler Berlin and gives courses in contemporary music and improvisation at other universities. For some time now Jan Gerdes has also appeared as a composer with his piano solo project `Songs and Improvisations`.

www.jan-gerdes.de

Verena Stauffer

Born 1978 in Austria. Studied philosophy at the University of Vienna. Lives equally in Berlin and Vienna. Publications of poetry and prose in numerous journals (including manuskripte, Podium, Spectrum/Die Presse, fixpoetry, Lichtungen) and anthologies (including All dies hier, Majestät ist deins: Lyrik im Anthropozän, Berlin, kookbooks, 2016, Wo warn wir? Ach ja: eine Anthologie junger österreichischer Lyrik. Limbus 2019 as well as on radio and television.

Independent publications:

Poetry:
(zitronen der Macht), hochroth, Wien, September 2014

Prose:
Orchis, Kremayr & Scheriau, Wien, März 2018

Prizes and awards:
Rotahorn Literaturpreis, 2014
Projektstipendium des österreichischen Bundeskanzleramtes 2015/2016, 2018/2019
Manuskripte Förderungspreis der Stadt Graz, 2017
HOTLIST-Preis der Frankfurter Buchmesse, 2018