Ensemble uBu - Vom Hören und Feen - pas de concert

In the organizer's words:

Glassy sounds lost in the mist. The fairy tries not to make a sound, strokes and feels, floats and yet sinks into the black of the lake. A world rises whose boundaries blur before the listening eye.

Rendezvous with uBu in the score of B.A. Zimmermann's cello concerto "en forme de pas de trois": the musical text, a fictitious place somewhere between ballet music and instrumental concerto, is full of allusions and explosions of associations in addition to the playing and action instructions.

uBu's interpretation experts nestle in the soundscapes and imagery. They skillfully pave paths that open up between playing and moving. They meet the mythical creatures that live here between sound and image and look them deep in the eye.

The ensemble doesn't just turn the score page by page, no, it folds it into a paper bird and lets it float in the deep black, shiny nothingness. Zimmermann's pluralism rises out of the fog, wonderfully alienated and quite ludicrously staged. The score pages shine in the moonlight and look like swans. Or like paladins?

Ultimately, not a concert. Because it's neither about hearing nor seeing, but about the unexpectedly fantastic that awakens when shifting from one to the other.

uBu, Ensemble for new concert performances, explores contemporary music as a physical and social event. The multidisciplinary ensemble of three musicians, three dancers and a costume artist formed in Cologne in 2016 to reinterpret B.A. Zimmermann's ballet blanc "Présence" for piano trio & dancers on behalf of the Zimmermann-Gesellschaft. uBu's interpretation was awarded the 2016 Pergamenschikow Prize and was performed at the Schwetzingen Festival, among others. Following on from "Présence", new works have been created for the interdisciplinary ensemble: "La Palanca" (2018) by Vladimir Guicheff-Bogacz and "Calling Sirens" (2019) by Huihui Cheng. In 2022, uBu launched the concert performance series "Mutants in Music", which takes place roughly once a year at Tanzfaktur Köln, Frankfurt LAB and resonanzraum Hamburg. The first edition, "Minimal Dominion", in collaboration with composer Ui-Kyung Lee and choreographer Naïma Mazic, built on the results of the 2020 Reload scholarship research, which led to a 360° music video series in the Cologne Philharmonie in 2021.

In 2023, uBu continued the Mutants in Music series with "Becoming uBu" as part of the three-year Ensembleförderung Musik NRW and was also included in the InSzene funding program of the Podium Gegenwart/Deutscher Musikrat. The third edition of Mutants in Music, "Dreamteam", will follow in spring 2025.

Ensemble uBu Anna Neubert (violin) | Magdalena Öttl (dance) | Esther Saladin (cello) | Sophia Spies (stage+costume) | Antonia Stäcker (dance) | Christoph Stöber (piano) | Emi Noda (production assistance)

Dramaturgy Valerie Wehrens

Outside Ear Diego Ramos Rodríguez

Production management Katja Kruglikova

Graphics Paul Voggenreiter

Supported by the Ministry of Culture and Sciences of North Rhine-Westphalia, InSzene program of Podium Gegenwart/Deutscher Musikrat