NEWSLETTER 04/19

The ground-breaking ceremony took place on March 1 - and after a year and a half of construction, the long-awaited Jazz Hall in the garden of the HfMT will open in fall 2020.
Wolf Kerschek - head of the jazz studies program - is already raving about the prospects it opens up:
First and foremost, the jazz musicians will have their own performance venue - and that is important, because you don't learn jazz in a room, but by making music together with others. It also offers the opportunity to conduct research with time and space and to develop new concert formats: in a laboratory that combines teaching and research.
Above all, however, the new venue creates a variety of opportunities for encounters. The program links the different disciplines, allowing music, theater, composition and movement to interact with each other. Audiences and artists, faculty and students and just as many different generations come together. People jam here, meet here after practicing and teaching or after a visit to the opera in the Forum.
The realization of this dream is thanks to the generous support of the Dr. E. A. Langner Foundation, which has been supporting the jazz department of the HfMT on a large scale and providing conceptual support for years. In addition to the foundation, the City of Hamburg is also contributing to the construction costs.

Nicht Zu Nah is the title of the world premiere with which Michelle Affolter will graduate in music theater directing at the Forum on April 4. In her performance, she tackles the topic of incest/sexualized violence between siblings, which she developed together with a strong team of young creatives.
Stage designer Florence Schreiber (a student at the HfBK) was involved from the very beginning and provides an insight into the considerations behind the visual realization:
At the beginning, they worked with different concepts and chains of association. For example, the two artists first dealt with the family shelter and cozy childhood memories before turning their attention to the crumbling of the ideal world. They finally found a suitable material in long lengths of wrapping paper, which unfold their symbolic power on many levels and also help to shape the space in a functional way.
While the paper might initially make you think of wallpaper, wrapping paper or practical household use, it undergoes massive changes in the course of the piece and reveals its destructible nature. The smooth paper first develops creases, then tears and, as the play progresses, loses its original form altogether. The paper also creates a stage space. The sheets enclose the audience and performers alike and create a closed situation that protects and shields, but also exposes. The contrasting sensory spaces are at the heart of the stage design work.

Manfred Stahnke had been teaching at the HfMT since 1984, and the former student of György Ligeti had held a full-time professorship for composition since 1995. In his farewell concert on April 5, however, not a single composed work will be performed. Together with friends and like-minded people, he is organizing a great evening of improvisation, as this has always been his passion alongside the art of composition: experimenting, listening to each other, the spontaneous, the unplanned...
He has found like-minded people for years in the semi-professional TonArt Ensemble, which can look back on a long history together and is currently celebrating its 30th anniversary. He will also be joined by fellow composer Georg Hajdu, who will take his ensemble into a contemplative world of microtonality, and Vlatko Kucan, who is at home in the field of polystylistic improvisation.
You can expect a feast for the ears of the unpredictable in honor of Manfred Stahnke, who has been retired since summer 2018, enjoying his permanent vacations and passionately devoting himself to playing the viola, among other things.

Lea Suter first learned to play the piano, then trained as an organ builder before studying church music and organ in Cologne and Bremen. She is currently completing her master's degree with Pieter van Dijk (organ) and Menno van Delft (harpsichord) at the HfMT. On April 11, she will be performing her final concert at St. Martini et Nicolai.

She recommends:
Le Feux d'artifice on April 24 with Antonio di Dedda

Do you know that moment of silence when you sit on a summery Mediterranean terrace and enjoy the shimmer of the evening sun on the surface of the water or when you listen to a singer whose part is written in her voice and you get goosebumps as you listen?

The organist and pianist Antonio di Dedda will play some of these compositions for pedal grand piano on the organ together with works by Franz Liszt, Jeanne Demessieux and Enrico Bossi as part of his concert recital on April 24. So who could do this better, who is better able to empathize with it, who has this part more "written into their voice" than an organist like Antonio di Dedda, who is also a pianist?