altstadtherbst closes on Monday October 3 with the German premiere of Jean Paul Smadj's "The Oud according to Smadj" with an intriguing mix of music from several nations - there are still a handful of tickets available! It's bound to be a memorable closing night!!!
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| Smadj ©Arnauld Weil |
What is Smadj's Arabian lute also known as?
Email win@rhinebuzz.com
Eun-Me Ahn from Korea colourfully sticks in my mind the most of all the performances I have seen so far. It was completely wild! I've been fortunate enough to see much of what has been happening at the festival and can only describe my feeling as complete admiration for Christiane Oxenfort and Andreas Dahmen who, with the help of some fabulously generous sponsors, have put this unusual and lively, and at times brave mix of performers together every autumn for some twenty one years now.
The logistics just don't bear thinking about!
The programme has included extraordinary performances such as Brian Eon's Music for Airports, which was played at Düsseldorf International by the Bang on a Can All-Stars from New York.
The experience of seeing and hearing this music being played live at the location for which it was written was quite something. The travellers stopped and gazed at what was going on, the people on the escalators seemed to move slower to the music, the public announcements glided perfectly to the sounds from the stage. Pity we can't have something like this going on at DUS more regularly!
Air France generously flew in some 40+ musicians from India for the electric and frenzied Manganiyar Seduction for which we were able to give away tickets:
I was also pretty surprised by Stabil Elite who played at the NRW Bank. Prize winners of a Düsseldorf young music prize, they had been recommended to me by Philip Maiburg back in March when I was researching for the "We Love Music" Tour as the young Düsseldorf band to watch out for. Now, I finally got to see them at this city festival and was so impressed by their casual, yet stylish presence and mesmerising beats. I look forward to seeing them again in a dark club somewhere in the city again soon.
The logistics just don't bear thinking about!
The programme has included extraordinary performances such as Brian Eon's Music for Airports, which was played at Düsseldorf International by the Bang on a Can All-Stars from New York.
The experience of seeing and hearing this music being played live at the location for which it was written was quite something. The travellers stopped and gazed at what was going on, the people on the escalators seemed to move slower to the music, the public announcements glided perfectly to the sounds from the stage. Pity we can't have something like this going on at DUS more regularly!
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| Bang on a Can entertain both airport travellers and audience |
Air France generously flew in some 40+ musicians from India for the electric and frenzied Manganiyar Seduction for which we were able to give away tickets:
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Winners of the tickets to the Manganiyar Seduction:
" .... amazing! I can't stop smiling & flying. So happy!!"
©Bernd Ahrens Photography |
I was also pretty surprised by Stabil Elite who played at the NRW Bank. Prize winners of a Düsseldorf young music prize, they had been recommended to me by Philip Maiburg back in March when I was researching for the "We Love Music" Tour as the young Düsseldorf band to watch out for. Now, I finally got to see them at this city festival and was so impressed by their casual, yet stylish presence and mesmerising beats. I look forward to seeing them again in a dark club somewhere in the city again soon.
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| Stabil Elite ©RhineBuzz |
Other highlights have been Finnish Duo WHS who entertained with video art and illusions second to none in the performances "The Waiting Room" and "Speed Blindness". The godfather of video art, Nam June Paik came to mind as the audience were submersed into another world, surreal and totally intriguing.
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| The Waiting Room WHS ©Pirje Mykkänen |
Another fabulous project was Dance of the Machines at Demag Cranes where a large audience witnessed young people who, during the day are young technical trainees at Demag Cranes, performing amongst other things, a ballet for industrial machinery and movies made by school students shown to music played by the Düsseldorf Symphony Orchestra.
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| Cheering Audience at Dance of the Machines |
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| "Like a Hurricane" with welders on 'backing vocals' Dance of the Machines |
We been privileged to be able to give away 6 pairs of tickets to lucky winners of the RhineBuzz community, the feedback has been wonderful -
Our first winner, Devesh Komaromi from Essen wrote:
"the Eh-Me Ahn show was fabulous. Strange, but fun and stimulating and downright bizarre in places. Just our style!"
And winners from the 'We Love Music' tour "... we had also a fantastic evening with princess Bari on the Altstadtherbst. Thanks again for the won tickets during the “we love music tour with you and Tim - and other crazy musicians". We had very good seats right in the middle near the stage, great !"
We will be there at the final concert on Monday and I personally am hugely looking forward to seeing the programme for 2012 of this wonderful festival that combines classical chrous and symphony orchestras with Pacman, cranes and the very latest in electronic music to the Asian vision of the crazy royal life of a princess.
And winners from the 'We Love Music' tour "... we had also a fantastic evening with princess Bari on the Altstadtherbst. Thanks again for the won tickets during the “we love music tour with you and Tim - and other crazy musicians". We had very good seats right in the middle near the stage, great !"
We will be there at the final concert on Monday and I personally am hugely looking forward to seeing the programme for 2012 of this wonderful festival that combines classical chrous and symphony orchestras with Pacman, cranes and the very latest in electronic music to the Asian vision of the crazy royal life of a princess.
The Düsseldorfers are so lucky to have all this on their doorstep.
Einfach grossartig!
