August news

In August we finish the broadcasting master of „A Funeral march for the First Cosmonaut“, a poem by Etel Adnan from 1968, that I did set to music. The text is a requiem for Yuri Gagarin and while working on it, it became a requiem for our world. In my interview with Etel Adnan we discussed the fact, that humans are already thinking of leaving the earth to restart living on other planets. Her poem is full of references to the important political events of the sixties. And still it is highly topical today. When I discovered the poem through Etel’s book „Life is a weaving“ I was immediately deeply impressed by its emotional and philosophical engaged 11 chapters. Etel asked me to set her poem to music, with singers and my way of combining classical and modern rhythmical music.

In parallel I am preparing the recordings of extended piano versions of my composition for Volker Koepp’s film „Seestück“. It is months full of creating and thinking. (Photo taken by Astrid Ackermann, 2019)