From Baroque musical exuberance to Afghan folk songs and musical testimonies of the times

Music as an experiment, an encounter and a reflection of its time: November brings a multifaceted concert programme to the University of the Arts Bremen. Students, lecturers and guests will be treated to a range of sounds, from the splendour of Baroque music and classical chamber music to contemporary jazz influences and grand symphonic works. The programme features unusual musical experiments, newly formed chamber music ensembles and an exploration of a pivotal year in history: 1945. Four concert formats demonstrate how closely musical education and artistic practice are intertwined at the HfK.

New ensembles, new perspectives: the Chamber Music Festival
How does musical harmony emerge when musicians come together in new constellations and put together a concert programme in a very short space of time? The HfK Chamber Music Festival on 15 and 16 November demonstrates just that. Professors Tanja Tetzlaff (cello), Sara Kim (viola), Mayumi Kanagawa and Katrin Scholz (violin) will, together with their students, organise two evenings of concerts that bring to life both musical encounters and a collaborative learning process.

Prof. Tanja Tetzlaff describes the concept as follows: newly formed ensembles will rehearse a repertoire in a very short space of time and perform it. This often leads to very exciting and spontaneous interpretations. What makes this particularly enriching is that musicians of different ages and levels of experience come together and learn from one another. As well as musical skill, the focus is on listening, ensemble sound, mutual support and emotional exchange, amongst other things.

The programme covers a wide range: on 15 November at 12:00, works by Richard Strauss, Henriëtte Bosmans, Luigi Boccherini and Dmitri Shostakovich will be performed in the HfK concert hall. This will be followed on 16 November at 7.30 pm by a second evening at the Sendesaal Bremen, featuring music by Shostakovich, Antonín Dvořák and Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy. Admission to both concerts is free.

At the Musikkeller, jazz meets traditional Afghan folk songs
Improvisation, musical encounters and stylistic diversity characterise the HfK Jazz Club. Every Tuesday from 8.00 pm, the university’s Musikkeller at Dechanatstraße 13–15 opens its doors for concerts and jam sessions featuring students and musicians from Bremen and beyond. As well as changing line-ups, visitors can enjoy try-out programmes, semester projects by the Rehearsal Band and themed concert formats.

On 17 November, Elena Yaqubee (guitar, vocals), Fabio Joel Tunno (electric guitar, electronics), Ustad Feraydoon Meyazada (tabla) and Nico Tarek Meinen (double bass) will be exploring and reinterpreting traditional Afghan folk songs. Against the backdrop of the Taliban regime’s ban on music in Afghanistan and the particular danger faced by women musicians, the project takes on exceptional social significance. Admission costs 5 EUR; 2 EUR for HfK students.

Dance, Chaos and Immortality: The HfK Baroque Orchestra
The HfK Baroque Orchestra will demonstrate that Baroque music is by no means limited to courtly elegance and well-ordered sonic splendour on 20 November at 7.30 pm in the Sendesaal Bremen. Under the baton of Prof. Mechthild Karkow, the Institute for Early Music and Performance Practice presents the concert evening ‘Dance, Chaos and Immortality’.

The focus is on French orchestral music of the 17th and 18th centuries – a world of sound in which courtly grandeur, the lightness of dance and a spirit of compositional experimentation come together. The programme opens with excerpts from Molière and Jean-Baptiste Lully’s *Le bourgeois gentilhomme* (1670), a satirical comedy about the bourgeoisie’s ambitions for social advancement at the court of Louis XIV.

Jean-Féry Rebel’s *Les Éléments* (1738) offers a rich tapestry of timbres and theatricality: the work musically depicts the creation of the Earth. It begins with a spectacular sonic experiment in which Rebel causes all the notes of the D minor scale to sound simultaneously. From this dissonant ‘Big Bang’, an ordered musical world gradually emerges, comprising dances such as the loure, chaconne and sarabande. The programme concludes with colourful and expressive orchestral movements from Jean-Philippe Rameau’s opera *Castor et Pollux*. Admission is free.

Between Storm and Silence: The Symphony Orchestra at the Glocke
The HfK Symphony Orchestra will bring the season to a special close on 30 November at 7.30 pm at the Glocke in Bremen. Under the title ‘Between Storm and Silence’, three works from 1945 will be performed together: Béla Bartók’s Viola Concerto, Benjamin Britten’s ‘Four Sea Interludes’, Op. 33a, and Dmitri Shostakovich’s Symphony No. 9 in E flat major, Op. 70.

The programme takes the end of the Second World War as its starting point and offers different musical perspectives on a year of historic upheaval. “All three works date from this period, yet were composed in different countries and under very different political and social conditions. The programme thus brings together three distinct musical perspectives on this historic year of upheaval,” explains Prof. Sara Kim, who developed the concert programme.

The concert opens with concert exam student Juwon Lee performing Bartók’s Viola Concerto as part of his final examination. The HfK’s symphony orchestra, comprising around 70 Bachelor’s and Master’s students, will then take to the stage. At the conductor’s podium is Catherine Larsen-Maguire, who, amongst other roles, served as Music Director of the National Youth Orchestras of Scotland and, as a former bassoonist with the Bremen Philharmonic, also has a connection to the Hanseatic city.

For Prof. Sara Kim, her involvement also sends an important message: women remain under-represented at the conductor’s podium. The concert thus combines musical excellence, historical reflection and the visibility of diverse artistic perspectives. Tickets costing 20 EUR / concessions 10 EUR are available here.