Ensemblekollektiv Berlin

There are musical instruments whose sound has been lost for a long time. Deeply moved by the over 2,000-year-old instruments in the grave of Chinese margrave Yi of Zeng, that was discovered in Hubei prince in 1977, Liza Lim has explored these mysterious findings and formulated messages in sound: hypothetical, fantastic, experimental, but never intending to reconstruct the music, the sound of this sensational discovery. The Australian has constructed her ensemble music like a magical machine that seeks contact with the other side. Her message is delivered by a contemporary, western formation. The large cast of Ensemblekollektiv Berlin performs the musical-archaeological speculations of the composer who has been invited to the Spree as a Fellow of the Berliner Wissenschaftskolleg and whose work can also be heard at Musikfest Berlin in the form of a new String Quartet. In her fascination with relics of the past, Liza Lim is by no means alone in this concert. For Iannis Xenakis, ancient Greece represented a half-real, half-imaginary place of longing. With “Jalons”, he leads us into worlds in which there is nothing greater than the joys, cares and needs of the individual. Here Clara Ianotta also feels an affinity with him: “a stir among the stars, a making way” creates a surreal cosmos that is secretly centred around the electric guitar.