Ceremony of Akademie Musiktheater Heute in Frankfurt

On 15 October 2014, Zafraan Ensemble will take part in an event of Akademie Musiktheater Heute at Oper Frankfurt and present first results of the collabroation with current scholars of the academy programme.

Akademie Musiktheater Heute is hosting an evening according to the motto »icing-trauma-memory« (»Vereisung-Trauma-Erinnerung«) on Wednesday, 15 October 2018 at 7:30 pm at the Holzfoyer of the Opera Frankfurt.

Outgoing scholars (2012-2014) of the Akademie Musiktheater Heute (initiated by Deutsche Bank Foundation) will present sketches for »Tonguecat«, which are inspired by Peter Verhelst’s eponymous novel.

Akademie Musiktheater Heute and the production team – Zafraan Ensemble from Berlin, mezzo-soprano Ricarda Gross and performer Liz Waterhouse – are inviting to this sensual experience. The young musicians developed a concept, which is based on the novel of the flemish author and does not only address ears and eyes but also enables to experience the content physically. The evening will be enriched by a scientific contribution: graduate psychologist and leader of counselling and therapy for refugees of »Evangelisches Zentrum für Beratung und Therapie am Weissen Stein« in Frankfurt, Heinrich Graf von Reventlow, will speak about »traumatisation«.

In this interpretation of »Tonguecat« the focus is on the eponymous character: a girl called Ulrike, who is also named Tonguecat. Various stations of her life will be illustrated: the murder of her parents and the extermination of her homeland by barbaric titan Iapetos and his men; her revenge killing on Iapetos up to the sellout of herself. The people in this story are living in a glacial period. They are paralyzed and mentally frozen, unable to feel or remember any emotions. Besides the rather intimate, private issue of the character Ulrike, the event will deal with the seemingly unsurmountable cycle of traumatisation and the shifting of perpetrator-victim-relations. At the same time, it will be a current parabel about larger world events, like the Gaza conflict, in which the boundaries between perpetrators and victims are blurred. Both parties push themselves even further into trouble, because they are not able to break even (or don’t want to). Furthermore, »Tonguecat« deals with the impact of war and how it affects future generations through memory and broken family relationships.

Akademie Musiktheater Heute of Deutsche Bank Foundation yearly awards 15 scholarships to young musicians in following fields: stage design, conducting, dramaturgy, composition, culture management and direction. The joint development of the final project is the highlight of the biennial academy programme. Opera Frankfurt has been a cooperation partner of the ceremony for many years. Deutsche Bank Foundation also awards composition commissions for New Music Theater to up-and-coming artists since 2008. Since its foundation in 2001, the Akademie Musiktheater Heute became one oft he most important institutions for young opera talents.

For further information about the academy and its programme please have a look here.