Eight Bridges Festival

"Recent events have almost leapfrogged the agenda," said Cologne's Head of Culture Susanne Laugwitz-Aulbach on Friday (January 16, 2015). The festival motto "Musik. Politik?", said Laugwitz-Aulbach, seems particularly timely in the light of recent events in which arts and cultural expression have taken on a new political explosiveness.

In line with the theme, the Eight Bridges Festival has commissioned 10 contemporary composers to write anthems of fictitious countries.

The diversified festival will present 23 world premieres altogether in early May. With concerts dedicated to Luciano Berio and Luigi Nono casting a light on the 20th century avant-garde, works by composers from former East Germany such as Paul Dessau and Hanns Eisler will explore the interface between music and propaganda. Also included is a profile of Louis Andriessen, a Dutch composer who has frequently focused on the area where music and political issues overlap.

Two major orchestras are on the playbill: the New York Philharmonic and the Vienna Philharmonic. A standout feature of "Eight Bridges" are the unusual venues in the city, such as the Storage Hall for Mobile Flooding Protection Elements, where Hans Werner Henze's composition "El Cimarrón" is scheduled to be performed.

One of the most unusual program concepts is "urbo kune," a 25-hour-long event in and around the Cologne Philharmonic Hall, which will seek to build a fictive European city using the raw materials of music, art, science, film and literature. The "Eight Bridges Lunch" - free appetizers and discussions with artists - as well as nighttime open-end jam sessions in a tent are proven audience favorites.

With festival director Louwrens Langevoort taking a wider view of the concept of "New Music," Eight Bridges will cooperate again with the local c/o pop festival. Workshops, films and lectures round out the agenda of the festival taking place from April 30 until May 10.

rf/so