Johannes Haase: Playground

In the organizer's words:

You can bow it, you can pluck it, you can amplify it, you can prepare it - and much more. Usually perceived as an orchestral instrument, the violin has a huge variety of sound potentials and playing techniques that you might not even suspect at first. This diversity is to be presented visually and sonically in violinist Johannes Haase's Playground project.

The stage, designed by artist Anna Schilling and Johannes Ellmer, will become a musical playground where musicians and audiences can meet. Light, projections and objects are used to create a special concert atmosphere that guides the audience through the performance and reveals extra-musical connections. The audience is on the same level as the musicians and can watch them up close. The aim is to enable direct and playful access and completely remove the usual separation between artist and audience. Compositions for violin and electronics, such as Steve Reich's minimal music 'Violin Phase', can be heard in this low-threshold and playful setting. With his 'Playground', Haase creates an experimental space for sound transformations on effect pedals, for playing with preparations and rhythmic loops: An evening of genre-free contemporary music without stylistic boundaries with works by Steve Reich, Caleb Burhans, David Lang as well as the violinist's own composition.

Violinist Johannes Haase is active in the international real-time music scene and plays electric and modern instruments on the borderline between contemporary music, jazz and improvised music. In his solo projects, the focus is on contemporary sounds and electronics: with the use of amplification, effect devices, preparations and unusual playing techniques, sound worlds are opened up and explored that are not normally associated with a violin, thus expanding the concept of the instrument.