2022: Here Comes Everybody
18.–19.11.2022 / resonanzraum Hamburg
Here Comes Everybody, aka Humphrey Chimpden Earwicker, the central character in James Joyce’s legendary Finnegans Wake, is each and every one of us at the same time. John Cage, on a quest to liberate music from all shackles, was fascinated by Finnegans Wake and the all-encompassing guise of HCE.
The 2022 Non-Piano/Toy Piano Weekend draws a direct line from Here Comes Everybody to John Cage to our world today. After 2 years of caution, isolation and countless lockdowns, it’s time for a long-deserved togetherness to celebrate everything that’s as full, colorful, diverse and crazy as our networked world actually is.
It all starts in a living room at home with John Cage’s ‘Living Room Music’. Chip bags, glasses and kitchen utensils turn out to be the most satisfactory musical instruments in the hands of the four musicians sitting at the table. In Pamela Z’s ‘No Baggage’ and ‘Notice of Baggage Inspection’ we try to board a plane but fail because of an insurmountable wall of regulations and unexpected obstacles. How many hairdressing appointments have fallen victim to the lockdown? A visit to the hairdresser is no longer a matter of course, but Hamburg’s Vidal Sassoon star hairdresser Raphael gladly performs a choreographed haircut to toy piano music in Steffen Wolf’s ‘The Cut’. A singing bartender serves up glasses of little nothings to help take off the edge. All these everyday absurdities make a visit to the therapist absolutely necessary! Fortunately Pamela Z’s ‘Dr Melfi’ has a sympathetic ear for all our problems. Further consolation: we stand together: A heartwarming Indian song, a heart tugging Ukrainian folk song, a pop song by the young Hamburg multi-talent Taleja Grossmann, and the exuberant ‘Death, Hocket and Roll’ by the young Californian composer Thomas Kotcheff embrace and reconcile us as a warm, cultural, global village.
Joining the festival is the multi-virtuosic pianist and accordeonist Dorrit Bauerecker who will present pieces from her brand new album ‘ONE WOMAN EXPERIMENTAL CIRCUS’ featuring the long-awaited sequel to the famous ‘One-Man Band’ series from Moritz Eggert, who has recently been a strong advocate of women’s rights, particularly young students: This time around it’s ‘ONE WOMAN BAND’ for a multi-tasking power woman. In an extreme contrast Dorrit also presents a piece focusing on homelessness in Hamburg by Niklas Seidl.
However, the cross-connections do not only range from Joyce to Cage, or from hairdresser to toy piano. Like a nucleus, John Cage inspired a wide variety of composers. Referring to 4’33”, György Ligeti wrote ‘Three Bagatelles’, a still largely unknown piece of silence. Jonathan Harvey’s Homage to Cage, à Chopin (and Ligeti is also there) quotes and honors three great musical heroes, and with a homage to Chopin for two toy pianos, the composer Frederic Verrieres closes the gap.
And last but not least, Cage’s own fascination with Finnegans Wake inspires us to present a contemporary focus on playing with musical language in pieces such as Katherina Balch’s ‘These Intervals Matter’ and ‘Caccia’ by Jo Kondo.
With additional toy piano premieres by Anthony De Ritis and Jeeyun Jang, composition student at the MfMT Hamburg.
The Non-Piano/Toy Piano Weekend 2022 will celebrate the renewed community.
We are all in the limelight: our diversity, our togetherness, our everyday rituals, the banal, the sublime, the tragic and all the crazy events of the last few years. Me Too, a life without travel and hairdressers but with toilet paper rationing. The global pandemic has blown us apart at many points, but also welded us together more than ever at others. It’s time to marvel and ponder, to laugh and to cry, to scratch your head and pat your thighs at all of this. Could Humphrey Chimpden Earwicker aka Finnegan aka Here Comes Everybody ever have imagined our present world in his craziest dreams?
Program
Evening 1
Sascha Lino Lemke (1976) ‘Les petits riens, # Tempus ex cortex’ (WP) 5 Bar pieces for solo performer and electronics
John Cage (1912-1992) ‘Living Room Music’ (1940) for 4 performers
Sascha Lino Lemke ‘Les petits riens, # Wunschfee’ (WP) 5 Bar pieces for solo performer and electronics
Pamela Z (1956) ‘No Baggage from Baggage Allowance’ (2010) for performer
Pamela Z ‘Notice of Baggage Inspection’ (2007) for piano and tape
Pamela Z ‘Dr. Melfi’ (2007) for voice and Non-Piano Ensemble
Steffen Wolf (1971) THE CUT (WP) for hairdresser, toy piano, singer and model
Sascha Lino Lemke ‘Les petits riens, # Justitia’ (WP) 5 Bar pieces for solo performer and electronics
Thomas Kotchheff (1988) ‘Death, Hocket and Roll’ (2014) for 2 toy pianos
Sascha Lino Lemke ‘Les petits riens, # Dschinn-Dschinn!’ (WP) 5 Bar pieces for solo performer and electronics
Intermission
Sascha Lino Lemke ‘Les petits riens, # [Bierkastenstück] (WP) 5 Bar pieces for solo performer and electronics
Katharine Balch (1991) ‘These Intervals Matter’ (2020) for soprano, crystal glasses and gravel
ONE WOMAN EXPERIMENTAL CIRCUS With Dorrit Bauerecker
Stephen Montague (1943) ‘Mirabella’ (1995) for toy piano
Niklas Seidl (1983) ‘Gichtgriffel und Achterbeene (für Schifferklavier und Fußpedal)’ (2016) for accordion
Moritz Eggert (1965) ‘One Woman Band’ (2021) for piano, samples, high-heel shoes, coffee bean grinder and tea kettle
Evening 2
Sascha Lino Lemke ‘kalimBao’ for kalimba and electronics
Casey Cangelosi (1982) ‘Set Up’ for percussion
Anthony De Ritis (1968) ‘Vox Minima Nebulae’ (the imagined sounds of tiny nebulas) (WP) for toy piano and 4-loudspeakers-audio
Reena Esmail ‘Chuti Hui Jahah, mvt. 1 (2015) for mezzo-soprano and piano
John Cage ‘Water Walk’ (1960) for solo television performance involving a large number of properties and special single-track tape
Taleja Grossmann (2000) ‘So Are You’ (WP) for voice and Non-Piano Ensemble
Intermission
Reena Esmail (1983) ‘Chuti Hui Jahah, mvt. 3 (2015) for mezzo-soprano and piano
Jonathan Harvey (1923-2012) ‘Homage to Cage, á Chopin (und Ligeti ist auch dabei)’ (1998) for prepared piano and CD
Sara Glojnaric (1991) ‘Latitudes’ (2020) for prepared piano, playback and video
György Ligeti (1923-2006) ‘Three Bagatelles, for David Tudor’ (1961) for piano
Frederic Verrieres (1967) ‘Four Note Waltz’ (2006-13) for 2 toy pianos
György Ligeti ‘Selbstportrait mit Reich und Riley (und Chopin ist auch dabei)’ (1976) for 2 pianos
Ukrainisches Volkslied Ptytschka-Nevelytschka (‘Small bird’) for voice
Jo Kondo (1947) ‘Caccia’ (2016) for toy piano
Reena Esmail ‘Chuti Hui Jahah mvt. 3’ (2015) for mezzo-soprano and piano
Jeeyun Jang (1992) ‘To Smart to be a Dog’ (WP) for Non-Piano Ensemble
Musicians
Dorrit Bauerecker piano, accordion, toy piano
Bernhard Fograscher, Jennifer Hymer, Daria Karmina-Iossifova, Steven Tanoto piano, toy piano, melodica
Taleja Großmann percussion/voice
Steffen Wolf tenor
Marcia Lemke-Kern soprano
Anna Vishnevska mezzo-soprano
Raphael Wachs hairdresser performance
Jacob Sello, Sascha Lino Lemke electronics
Maike Schuster director
With works by
Katherine Balch, John Cage, Anthony de Ritis, Reena Esmail, Moritz Eggert, Taleja Großmann, Jeeyun Jang, Jonathan Harvey, Thomas Jo Kondo, Thomas Kotchheff, Sascha Lino Lemke, György Ligeti, Stephen Montague, Niklas Seidl, Frederic Verrieres, Steffen Wolf & Pamela Z.
