silent green 3

Laura Bowler // Global Breath 2

The artist stands on a stone in an open landscape, her colourful coat blowing in the wind, she laughs.

Laura Bowler © Robin Clewley

Described by The Arts Desk as “a triple threat composer-performer provocatrice,” Laura Bowler opens this evening with three works for vocal, electronics and video commissioned from a trio of composers: Nwando Ebizie, Sivan Cohen Elias and Diana Soh. Each of these composers has chosen a very different starting point, ranging from French children’s stories through autobiographical rituals and on to the fragmentation of the self and the creation of avatars. After this, a variety of compositions for brass can be heard as part of Global Breath, the research project initiated by Marco Blaauw in which he undertakes an artistic exploration of the universality of trumpet sounds. “Monochrome, light blue darkness” by Milica Djordjević resembles an “immersive painting or a sculpture”: it is “a comprehensive study of crystallised tones.” In “Shimmer”, the Japanese composer Dai Fujikura explores how the trumpet can sound as sensual as possible without awakening the impression of a fanfare or a powerful brass sound. In “Shallow Grave” Liza Lim investigates music’s potential to connect people even beyond death and allows us to hear a “Neolithic” ceramic horn whose roots extend back over 3,000 years. Georg Friedrich Haas expresses solidarity with the Black Lives Matter movement with the work “I can’t breathe”.

Programme change: Unfortunately, the work “La Ville-Zizi” by Diana Soh cannot be shown.

Library of MaerzMusik goes silent green
Artist talks, lectures, a sound installation and a breath therapy session
28.3. & 29.3.

A conversation between Laura Bowler and Juliet Fraser can be found in the BerlinerFestspiele Media Library. Also, an essay by George E. Lewis about Georg Friedrich Haas’s “I can’t breathe” can be found in the BerlinerFestspiele Media Library.

Programme

Laura Bowler: Three

Sivan Cohen Elias
Who-He-Huh
solo multimedia piece for a singer and fixed electronics (2024)
Commisioned by Ralph Vaughan Williams Trust, Hinrichsen Foundation and Arts Council of England
World premiere

Nwando Ebizie
Dahlia (and you will be there forever and ever)
solo multimedia piece for a singer and fixed electronics (2024)
Commisioned by Ralph Vaughan Williams Trust, Hinrichsen Foundation, Diaphonique and Arts Council of England
World premiere

Diana Soh
La Ville-Zizi
for solo voice and electronics (2025)
Commisioned by Ralph Vaughan Williams Trust, Hinrichsen Foundation, Diaphonique and Arts Council of England
World premiere

With

Laura Bowler – soloist, producer
Sivan Cohen Elias – electronics
Sam Redway – producer, dramaturg, movement director

Global Breath 2

Milica Djordjević
Monochrome, light blue darkness
for eight wind instruments (2024)
Commisioned by WDR and New Music Dublin

Edivaldo Ernesto
Intervention

Dai Fujikura
Shimmer
for trumpet solo, performed by two double bell trumpets (2025)
Commissioned by Marco Blaauw, sponsored by Musikfonds e. V. and Kunststiftung NRW

Liza Lim
Intervention

Liza Lim
Shallow Grave
for “Neolithic” ceramic horn and alto trumpet (2023)
Commissioned by Marco Blaauw, sponsored by Musikfonds e. V. and Kunststiftung NRW

Georg Friedrich Haas
I can’t breathe
for trumpet solo (2014)
in memoriam of Eric Garner
with a choreography by Ernesto Edivaldo
Commissioned by Ensemble Musikfabrik, supported by the Ministry for Family, Children, Youth, Culture and Sport of North-Rhine Westphalia

With

Marco Blaauw – alto trumpet, double bell trumpet, “Neolithic” ceramic horn, trumpet
Edivaldo Ernesto – choreography, dance
Liza Lim – speaker
Laura Vukobratović – double bell trumpet
The Monochrome Project
Marco Blaauw, Christine Chapman, Mathilde Conley, Rike Huy, Bob Koertshuis, Nathan Plante, Markus Schwind, Laura Vukobratović – trumpet