Donaueschinger Musiktage: Make up your own Mind!
For 355 days a year, Donaueschingen is a quiet and forgotten village in Southern Germany. But every third week of October, it transforms itself into the focal point of the new music scene, as the traditional Donaueschinger Musiktage are staged all around town. On Friday 19th, the latest edition of the Donaueschinger Musiktage will commence with two mouthwatering concerts: First, Canadian composer Marc Sabat will team up with his Italian colleague Lorenzo Pompa for “wave piano scenery player”, a piece using the Bösendorfer CEUS, by some considered a milestone in the history of reproducing pianos (meaning: it plays itself). And then, four more composers will present a wide spread of commissions and world premieres, including choral and orchestral works that night. Both concerts should coincide nicely with the theme of this year’s Donaueschinger Musiktage: To find new ways of expression within and between the fields of music, video, performance arts, sound art and radio play – as well as between different genres: Guests at this year’s Donaueschinger Musiktage will include Eliott Sharp, Bernhard Lang and Helmut Oehring, most of them operating at the borders of the Avantgarde, electronic music and (occasionally) Jazz.
The Donaueschinger Musiktage have a long and controversial history with enough annecdotes and scandals to fill an entire library worth of books. The Donaueschinger Musiktage were the place where Pierre Schaeffer was supposedly wilfully ridiculed for his epic “Orphee 53”, where the Avantgarde celebrated its heydays and had retreated into their annual self-flagellation for most of the 90s thanks to its inability to renew itself.
The organisors’ will to continue the festival, whose first edition dates back to 1921, has however taken it safely through the days of heavy criticism and into a bright future: Private sponsors are backing it up and the Donaueschinger Musiktage are now a widely respected event among young and old music fans. When the left-wing German newspaper Frankfurter Rundschau reported on the Donaueschinger Musiktage last year, they remarked with honest suprise that concerts were suddenly selling out and that a whole generation was finding inspiration in the festival. This popularity has many resons, one of them certainly being its internationality: In 2007, the Donaueschinger Musiktage will welcome artists from 15 nations.
In addition to finding generous sponsors, the Donaueschinger Musiktage have also teamed up with broadcaster SWR to ensure radio coverage of the event. The SWR’s page even allows for webstreaming, so no matter where you’re from, you have every chance to make up your own mind.
Homepage: Donaueschinger Musiktage
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