+Muntendorf

Melencolia​​

Eine Show gegen die Gleichgültigkeit des Universums (2022)

For centuries, melancholy was interpreted in manifold ways, considered both a illness and a moment of contemplation, a possibility of overcoming earthly suffering and the sister of genius. The puzzling polyhedron in Albrecht Dürer’s engraving Melencolia I has become a symbol for these contradictions in the midst of the human desire for salvation. Melencolia explores these opposites in music. An opera as hypertext become space, in which sources of sound, light, body, and image establish themselves as elementary particles, which then regroup themselves in a continuous process of transformation. In a playful approach to stereotypes this work goes in search of a liberating melancholic mood. In 3D audio landscapes, fourteen instrumentalists from Ensemble Modern encounter the virtual guests such as the Iranian ney anban virtuoso Saeid Shanbehzadeh or their own digital twins. Artificial intelligence and cloned voices encounter digital visual worlds and bizarre parallel existences.

Komposition, Musikalische Leitung: Brigitta Muntendorf
Inszenierung, Dramaturgie: Brigitta Muntendorf, Moritz Lobeck
Visuelle Welten: Veronika Simmering
Ausstattung: Sita Messer
Licht: Begoña Garcia Navas
Video: Warped Type (Andreas Huck, Roland Nebe)
Klangregie: Norbert Ommer
Programmierung: Lukas Nowok
3D-Audio: Banu Sahin, Ralf Zuleeg (d&b audiotechnik)
Ney-Anbān: Saeid Shanbehzadeh (digitaler Gast)
Nornen: Ute Farin, Alexandra Gol, Gloria Pfennig (digitale Gäste)

Ensemble Modern
März 2025
Haus der Berliner Festspiele

Ein Auftragswerk der Bregenzer Festspiele und des Ensemble Modern in Kooperation mit MaerzMusik 2025

Orbit – A War Series​​

Space Oratorium für AI-Stimmklone,
3D-Audio und Elektronik

The title Orbit: A War Series is a reference to the New York artist Nancy Spero: deeply moved by the photographs of the Vietnam War that were circulating in the media, Spero investigated the links between sexuality, violence, and power in The War Series (1966–70). The subject of oppressive power structures revealed in her art is horrifyingly relevant today. Orbit: A War Series appeals to the images in our minds: Brigitta Muntendorf’s immersive 3D audio space oratorio is like an electroacoustic series of narratives in which sounds, texts, voices, and space become transmitters of power structures. The texts are based on interviews and reports from Afghanistan, Iran, DR Congo, Poland, the U.S., and Asia during the Second World War. The musical spaces of violence, protection, escape, or exhibition form the acoustic habitat of the voices that their bodies left behind to form vocal clones and immortal warriors of a posthuman and techno-futuristic chorus that proclaims an opera of the future that is as sensorial as it is political.

Komposition, Künstlerische Leitung: Brigitta Muntendorf
Konzeption: Moritz Lobeck, Brigitta Muntendorf
Dramaturgie: Mehdi Moradpour
Audio-Programmierung: Lukas Nowok
Lichtkonzept: Begoña Garcia Navas
KI-Stimmklon-Modelle: Respeecher, Lisa Aithnard, Arjopa Limburg, Nikka-Mae-Lopez
Kriegskorrespondentin (Prolog): Christina Lamb
KI Stimmklon-Technologie: Respeecher
Field recordings: Alfred-Wegener-Institut / NOAA-Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory
3D-Audio: Ralf Zuleeg, Banu Sahin (d&b audiotechnik)

April 2025
Humboldt Forum, Saal 2, EG

Eine Produktion von La Biennale di Venezia und ECHO Factory Kooperation mit dem Humboldt Forum.
Mit freundlicher Unterstützung der Kunststiftung NRW, des Goethe-Instituts und der Ernst von Siemens Musik Stiftung