Friederike Reumann

Friederike Chylek, born in Starnberg, began playing the piano and the recorder at age seven. Whilst still attending secondary school in Stockdorf and Gräfelfing, she began her artistic edu-cation in Munich with the harpsichordist Michael Eberth. Start-ing in the year 2000, she studied harpsichord and figured bass at the world renowned Schola Cantorum Basiliensis with pro-fessors including Jesper Christensen, with Rudolf Lutz (historical improvisation) and Edoardo Torbianelli (fortepiano).

The Mediterranean Sea has been the hub of resettlement and migration for centuries. After the fall of the Byzantine Empire, the people who settled in those areas that were depopulated by years of war, expulsion and flight. And in 1492, the Spanish Reconquista led to the expulsion of the Sephardic Jews, who brought their culture to many countries around the Mediterranean. Even today, the Mediterranean again plays an inglorious role in flight and expulsion. The German gambist Friederike Heumann has taken this as an opportunity to present, together with the Turkish singer Nihan Devecioglu and the Spanish guitarist Xavier Díaz-Latorre, the many ancient cultures around the Mediterranean: the tradition of the Sephardic people, songs from Lebanon, Turkey, Armenia and Greece, art music from Venice to Fado in Spain and Portugal, whose influences reach as far as South America.

Gaia-Ästhetiken entwerfen Figurationen der Erde und ihrer Lebensformen, welche die Menschen dezentrieren und den Fokus auf die Verbindungen zwischen Lebewesen untereinander und dem Unbelebten richten. Diese Ästhetiken sind der Gaia-Theorie entlehnt. In den 1970er Jahren bei der NASA entwickelt, wird sie von Bruno Latour und Isabelle Stengers in den Kontext des Anthropozäns gesetzt. Die Erde als Gaia ist eine mehr-als-menschliche Assemblage, in der die Menschen Knotenpunkte der Verantwortlichkeit darstellen. Filmische Ästhetiken können diese Knotenpunkte wahrnehmbar werden lassen, wie die Spielfilme I Am Legend (2007) und Planet of the Apes (2011-2017) zeigen. Die Filme präsentieren ihren Zuschauer_innen eine Welt in der Post/Apokalypse, in der die Filmfiguren mit dem Eindringen Gaias konfrontiert sind. Sie werden in der Post/Apokalypse kompostiert: Viren dringen in ihre Körper ein, zersetzen ihre Menschlichkeit und lassen sie zum Teil des mehr-als-menschlichen Gaia-Komposts werden.

Drawing on historical texts, Fabrice Bollon’s opera The Folly focuses on Erasmus of Rotterdam, the influential Renaissance reformer, cosmopolitan humanist and intellectual, who, in old age, reflects on the events of his life. Past and present converge as fictional figures from his books or real-life antagonists appear in much the same way as Bollon merges periods through his creative use of several 16th-century compositions. Set in an age of polarised extremism that reflects our own times, Erasmus’s humanism requires vigilance, defence and reinvention.