Navigators and Kuss Quartet move their work to the Internet

Together with the Kuss Quartett, the ensemble Nico and the Navigators wanted to bring a contribution to the Beethoven Year 2020 to the European music stages: under the title Force and Freedom, they wanted to " explore the music in the existential field of tension between external constraints and inner freedom with its indissoluble opposition of subjective desire and objective reality, in which Beethoven had to move and assert himself throughout his life. " The premiere was to take place on May 1, 2020 as part of the Schwetzingen SWR Festival, with further performances planned for the Kissinger Sommer, the Konzerthaus Dortmund, BOZAR Brussels and the radialsystem Berlin, among others. On March 18, 2020, rehearsals had to be canceled at the Ufer Studios in Berlin, and the premiere on May 1, 2020 has been canceled along with the entire Schwetzingen Festival and has since been rescheduled for next year. The other dates are also to be made up next season. At the beginning of April, however, an Internet project was initiated that is based on the work on Force and Freedom and that, in addition to the questions posed there, also negotiates the current limitations of life. In short, fast or meditative clips, which are based on the complete recording of all Beethoven string quartets by the Kuss Quartet published on the Rubicon Classics label, individual miniatures of the artists are assembled, which store small memories like time capsules or reminiscences of the common present in the current isolation as a growing digital diary. " It is a technique beyond the usual streaming: the choice of pieces and the editing of the scenes put the snapshots into context and develop a whole from fragments, a digital staging. This method, however, is not able to replace the physical communal experience of a performance. Rather, the work is an expression of the individual's longing for each other, which should be preserved as a lasting experience from this crisis. » The individual sequences can already be followed on social media. At the end of this path awaits an extraordinary memory game, whose parts can be assembled from a selection of the total of 29 clips. If solved correctly, there is the possibility of winning tickets to future physical performances of "Force and Freedom".

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