From the Beginning, Opening Concert

"How can we find the new we in the old?" (Seda Keskinkılıç, libretto for Amphiphilie)

In search of answers, the opening concert of our festival VOM ANFANGEN begins with the utopia of a transtraditional symphony orchestra. In Mahler’s 4th Symphony, the Konzerthausorchester and Jonathan Nott leave the “worldly tumult” behind and open a paradisiacal space. In this “heaven full of violins,” they are later joined by the Trickster Orchestra, The Present, and members of other independent ensembles for Amphiphilie. Just as amphiphilic substances dissolve in both water and fat, the boundaries between traditions and musical languages dissolve here: string, woodwind, and brass instruments, as well as kanun, koto, sheng, and nay, find their way toward a new, shared musical language—both composed and improvised. Seda Keskinkılıç’s libretto, developed through conversations and encounters, asks: What stories become audible when we allow the many voices of a “new we”—powerful and vulnerable—to sound side by side?

Program and cast

Konzerthausorchester Berlin
Jonathan Nott, conductor
Trickster Orchestra
Cymin Samawatie, conductor
The Present
And members of other independent ensembles from Berlin

Program
Gustav Mahler
Symphony No. 4 in G major for orchestra and soprano

Interval

Cymin Samawatie / Ketan Bhatti
Amphiphilie for transtraditional orchestra (Libretto: Seda Keskinkılıç)