Credit: rubra
Bruckner Orchester Linz (AT)
At the center of the Big Concert Night in POSTCITY are the two middle movements of Anton Bruckner’s 8th Symphony, the crux on which the entire performance hinges. This is right and wrong at the same time! Bruckner’s music forms the foundation, the walls and perhaps the heavens too, in which audience members, situated in the middle of the Gleishalle, are free to move about. The listeners are in the center, in the arena, flanked on one side by Bruckner Orchester Linz and on the other by a band of musicians including world-class guitarist Nguyên Lê, Hugo Siegmeth (reeds), Harald Scharf (bass) and Bastian Jütte (drums). A symphonic space is to be configured about the audience, who will be able to shift locations, stay put and be receptive to sound arriving from all directions.
The interior of Bruckner’s symphony will be opened up, commented on, reflected upon and thus made immediately accessible by those present. In this concert event, form and content are being renegotiated. This is the very nature of the Ars Electronica Festival, which, perennially on the leading edge, showcases the progress of visionary technologies, hosts a discussion, and considers them in a social context—the 2017 festival theme is Artificial Intelligence – The Other I. This is likewise the nature of this unique situation for auditory and visual experience in the Gleishalle, a railroad loading dock in a former postal service logistics facility, and, above all, of the setting and the dramaturgy that Markus Poschner and his musicians have come up with. Poschner will lead his orchestra, but also segue to the band and have recourse to his piano’s keys to improvise beyond, on and with Bruckner’s sounds. But this is far more than commuting back and forth; these tonal strands are willingly drawn out of the symphony and keyed up in multiple perspectives. This is ultimately an endeavor at sensory experience in a space that differs from a conventional concert hall. Another space for another experiencing ego to thereby play an interesting variation on the festival theme.
Composer Hugo Wolf was overwhelmed by Bruckner’s 8th Symphony. Following its premiere on December 18, 1892, in Vienna, he wrote: “This symphony is the creation of a giant and surpasses, in mental dimensions, in fertility and greatness, all of the master’s other symphonies.”
Markus Poschner, his band and the Bruckner Orchester Linz are moving on into a new dimension. This concert marks the commencement of his tenure as chief conductor of the Bruckner Orchester Linz. It certainly is to be understood as a declaration. An opening!
Credits
Guitar: Nguyên Lê
Reeds: Hugo Siegmeth
Bass: Harald Scharf
Drums: Bastian Jütte
Conductor and piano: Markus Poschner
Visuals: Cori Olan
Text: Norbert Trawöger
