Melencolic Medley by Ensemble Modern
On March 21, 2025, Ensemble Modern and Brigitta Muntendorf release the vinyl album ›MELENCOLIC MEDLEY‹ on Ensemble Modern Media: a post-digital medley based on the musical theatre show ›MELENCOLIA‹, featuring the media theorist Geert Lovink performing his own spoken texts.
In 2022, the trans-digital musical theatre show ›MELENCOLIA – a Show against the Indifference of the Universe‹ celebrated its premiere at the Bregenz Festival, performed by Ensemble Modern. In 3D audio landscapes, the musicians of Ensemble Modern encountered virtual guests such as the Iranian ney and anban virtuoso Saeid Shanbehzadeh and their own digital twins. The writings of the media theorist and internet critic Geert Lovink played a central role in conceiving the work. Now ›MELENCOLIC MEDLEY‹ is released as a vinyl album that blends audio material from ›MELENCOLIA‹ with »sadness mediations« and hopecores by Geert Lovink. They point to »digital melancholy and try to countermand the colonization of our inner worlds«. Furthermore, Muntendorf adds, the release on vinyl is meant to »feel like an island of deceleration at a time when digital formats dominate our world«. ›MELENCOLIC MEDLEY‹ is supported financially by the Kunststiftung NRW.
On March 21 and 22, 2025, Ensemble Modern will open the festival MaerzMusik in Berlin with ›MELENCOLIA‹. After the world premiere at the Bregenz Festival in 2022 and performances in Amsterdam in 2024, the German premiere will take place in Berlin in cooperation with the State Opera Unter den Linden.
On March 22, 2025 at 2:30 pm, the album release takes place as part of the opening of the Library of Maerzmusik at the upper foyer of the Haus der Berliner Festspiele, with Brigitta Muntendorf, Geert Lovink, Kamilia Metwaly (Artistic Director, MaerzMusik) and Christian Fausch (Artistic Manager and Managing Director, Ensemble Modern) in attendance.
Ensemble Modern and Brigitta Muntendorf have been collaborating for more than 10 years. In 2012/13, she was a fellow of the International Ensemble Modern Academy.
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Ensemble Modern is a curious loudspeaker for music of our times: courageous, uncompromising, energetic. An essential, aesthetically polyglot amplifier for trend-setting sound concepts. It is one of the most well-known, leading current music formations in the world. Founded in 1980 and at home in Frankfurt, 18 soloists currently determine the activities of this democratically organized ensemble.