The rustling of candy wrappers, the breathing of the person sitting next to you, the little cough two rows back: The sounds seem more intense in the dark. They penetrate the blackness almost three-dimensionally, making visual orientation impossible. But then, as if from nowhere, you hear music: a string quartet. No one can see how the musicians move or what they look like. But their sounds vibrate in the room, filling the imagination with colours and shapes. What at first seems oppressive turns out to be a mind-expanding experience. When sight is not in the foreground, the ear can grasp the world.
The idea of a dark concert is not new. At Beethovenfest 2022, however, such a format is currently being developed with partners who move in the dark as a matter of course: blind and visually impaired people. All too often they are reduced to their disability in public and seen as needy; exciting cultural programmes for this target group are rare. In Bonn, a group of young blind people are developing an evening with the Vision String Quartet that aims to sharpen the sense of hearing and at the same time raise questions. What does hearing actually mean? And do you really hear differently when you can’t see?
Normally, a concert of this kind at Beethovenfest would be entitled »Education«: watch out, it’s about to get experimental! This is changing under new artistic director Steven Walter. Instead of dividing the events into countless categories, there is one programme. The symphony concert is on a par with the workshop, the children’s concert with the performance.
»The aim of so-called music education is to create proximity, to establish contact and to provide a context for what is being heard«, says Steven Walter. »In my opinion, this should be the aim of every concert.«
What sounds like an idealistic vision is currently being realised in the offices of Beethovenfest. Music education is not a separate department within the programme planning process; the entire team is motivated to think along with the programme. Marion Leuschner, who has been primarily responsible for music education since 2016, says that this changes the work processes:
»Many organisers like to adorn themselves with so-called educational offers, while the main programme continues unchanged. At Beethovenfest, the idea of education and outreach is to be integrated into the entire institution.«
A sponsor for this long-term structural process has already been found. The Commerzbank Foundation is supporting this innovative project, the basic idea of which Steven Walter sums up as follows:
»There is no more music outreach, because everything is outreach.«
Nevertheless, there are areas of the programme that stand out for their educational approach. For example, in collaboration with the Marabu Theatre, a music theatre piece on the theme of »water« will be created for the Viktoriabad, involving students from a wide range of disciplines from the Ruhr area and Cologne. They contribute compositions, explore the use of water on stage and consider how to introduce primary school classes in Bonn to the concert. In the process, new networks are formed, participants learn from each other, exchange knowledge and reflect together on their fields of activity.
Nothing will be revealed about this year’s Secret Concert: neither the venue, nor the works performed, nor the musicians. Only the date and time will be written on the mystery ticket. Guests will then receive a notification via an app telling them where to be at the time. The concert as an adventure game – for the curious and all those who love wonder bags.
The format has been developed by the Student Managers, a group of young people who create a concert for the festival. They organise everything from press work to marketing and artist support. Each of them has a professional counterpart in the Beethovenfest team, for example in the Artistic Operations Office.
Lea Kuron, who worked with the student managers in 2016, is enthusiastic about this way of working: »It’s a peer-to-peer project. The question behind it is: why should adults create concepts for young people, when the young people know much better what interests them?«
The Secret Concert brings together several generations of student managers: the current group and a selection of alumni who have gone on to organise their own activities. The young managers spend an intensive nine months at the festival – a formative experience. »It was a project where you could grow beyond yourself,« says Sophie Tollmann, who was a student in 2019. »Young people are made aware that they can achieve incredible things. I developed a real enthusiasm to get involved here.«
The two project leaders, Marion Leuschner and Lydia Kappesser, are key figures in this process. They support the young people in their planning and keep the group together. Above all, they are two adults who trust the young people and encourage them to think about political and social issues – things that really concern them.
»Right from the start, this was a new, really innovative project,« says Steven Walter. »Now it’s time to take the next step.« For him, the next step is to work even more intensively with different groups and communities in the city.
One example is the cooperation with the youth and neighbourhood centre in Brüser Berg, a district on the outskirts of Bonn. The issues that concern people here are to be reflected in a large cultural afternoon that is being created in cooperation with the neighbourhood centre there. The idea is not to design a tailor-made programme after thorough research, but to involve people in the process of creating a concert.
The artistic participants are soloists from the orchestra Spira mirabilis, a European formation. The ensemble was created with the intention of being accessible and not just to communicate art on stage: Away from the image of the anonymous musician in a tuxedo on stage, towards a personal exchange at eye level. At Brüser Berg, several communities will get to know and work together: the local women’s group, a youth group and musicians from all over Europe.
»Alle Menschen« (»All people«) is the motto of the 2022 Beethovenfest, an abridged version of Friedrich Schiller’s famous poem »To Joy«. While the Age of Enlightenment held up universal brotherhood as the highest ideal, it is no longer possible to read or sing these lines without wondering where the sisterhood is, or those who see themselves as neither sister nor brother.
Beethovenfest wants to put a question mark behind these two words and embark on a search with a very colourful programme – for all those who have not been heard enough so far.
»Bonn is a city with many identities,« says Steven Walter. Understanding their needs and taking their diversity into account is a goal that Beethovenfest has set itself for this season. In doing so, the organisers are also securing their own place in the city community: only a festival that people actually identify with can maintain its relevance in the future.