Grounding the Stars

Die Sterne erden [Grounding the Stars]—composer Gerhard Wolfstieg dedicates his musical trilogy to this tension-filled image. The second part of the work, which will premiere at ZKM, reveals an unusual constellation of medial elements to which the listener is set in relation, spatially and perceptively:
Placed at the center is a grand piano with four blocks of viewers oriented spherically around it. Projected over the piano are two video images with concrete and abstract content. And arching over this, for its part, is the Klangdom, through which the sounds experience a spatial effect. This concentric constellation is played by two pianists who in addition to the grand piano, also play the “Schrei(b)maschine,” an instrument Wolfstieg developed and programmed from a computer, and two models. The models move through the space in clothes specially designed for the musical theater, with built-in electronic sensors, as a component in the staged process and abstract plot planned by Wolfstieg.
 

Die Sterne erden

Musical theater for two pianists and two models with two video projections, playback tape, grand piano, electronic instrument “Schrei(b)maschine,” and the Klangdom of the ZKM | Institute for Music and Acoustics
 

Participants

Concept / Sound / Music / Direction Gerhard Wolfstieg
Pianists Boris Feiner, Gerhard Wolfstieg
Models Maggie Schlosser, Dorothea Sutor
Clothes Andrea Wunner
 

Media constellation and dramatization

Talk with Gerhard Wolfstieg in the series “Der Performer in der elektronischen Musik” (The performer in electronic music)