GRAVITATIONS: Haggai Cohen-Milo & Band trifft auf Debussys »Prélude à l'après-midi d'un faune« von Claude Debussy

In the organizer's words:

When Haggai Cohen-Milo, double bass virtuoso and composer, describes how, as a jazz musician, he creatively engages with works of classical concert literature, the approach to the moon comes to mind: he uses the drive of gravitational forces, but steers against them and shoots past into new worlds.

For the three-part Gravitations series, Cohen-Milo has been commissioned by the Hamburg Symphony Orchestra to work with three "classical" heavyweights. It begins with Claude Debussy's "Prélude à l'après-midi d'un faune " - a key work of an entire era. Cohen-Milo and his artistic collaborators will transform the iconic piece, which lasts around 13 minutes, into a unique concert of jazz, improvisation and spoken word art. Giuseppe Verdi's "Messa da Requiem" follows in February

Haggai Cohen-Milo, double bassist and composer, is a border crosser between genres and art forms, in demand worldwide and also a welcome guest at the Hamburg Symphony Orchestra, most recently at the Martha Argerich Festival 2024. At the suggestion of the Hamburg Symphony Orchestra, he has explored three heavyweights of the classical repertoire for the three-part concert series Gravitations. Cohen-Milo circles the work in conversation, study and improvisation, searching for the essential emotions and themes within it, uncovering them for himself and then creating something completely unique and new in sound and text with his artistic collaborators: three unique concerts between jazz, improvisation and spoken word art.

For each Gravitations concert, Cohen-Milo puts together a hand-picked band of musicians, all of them pioneers of the current international jazz scene. With six musicians in slightly different line-ups and spoken word artists who combine the sensitivity of lyricism with the energy of rap, he dedicates himself to three musical milestones, which the Hamburg Symphony Orchestra will interpret in their concerts.

It begins with Claude Debussy's "Prélude à l'après-midi d'un faune", his most popular and at the same time his first important symphonic work, which shocked audiences with its completely innovative free form and fascinating synthesis of natural experience and fantasy and became the key work of an entire epoch. "Prélude à l'après-midi d'un faune" was a work that was ahead of its time - as is often the case in all art forms, not just music. What characterizes such works? This aspect serves as an anchor point for Cohen-Milo to transform the iconic piece, which only lasts around 13 minutes, into a concerto of its own.

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