Ensemble Musikfabrik I

In this first of two guest performances at this year’s Musikfest Berlin, the Musikfabrik under the direction of Enno Poppe takes us on an expedition into the world of the young Irish composer Ann Cleare. Born in 1983 in the islands’ Midlands, the composer is an explorer. Her music thrives on touching and being touched, such as when she wanders through old sheds and abandoned warehouses in search of new sources of sound, eventually releasing rusty machine parts from their long state of silence.

“Perhaps my works seem abstract”, says Ann Cleare, “but to me they are choreographies in space, populated and animated by sound figures”. The composer transforms stages into landscapes. Here, musicians or ensemble groups are like actors in a drama. It is not only exciting to discover what can be heard, but also who is lifting their voice at any given moment and from which location. Everything is in constant motion in Ann Cleare’s soundscapes. Winner of the 2019 Ernst von Siemens Music Foundation Composer Award, the artist does not create monocultures. She designs environments, which can be explored from various perspectives and speaks of the “poetry of perception”. Early on, the Ensemble Musikfabrik discovered Ann Cleare’s music for itself. This dedicated team of idiosyncratic personalities, who do not consider it a contradiction to pursue their own, often very different paths, finds an ideal terrain in her music. In Ann Cleare’s landscapes, the collective is no less important than the individual is.