Holland Festival: Dark Skies - Jamie Man, Blixa Bargeld, ft. James McVinnie, Asko|Schönberg, Slagwerk Den Haag

Dark Skies

For this large-scale musical work, composer Jamie Man was inspired by the emergence of Dark Sky Reserves - without light pollution - and astronomical mystery: with every tiny bit of understanding we acquire, the mystery of our universe increases exponentially. We project into this dark, unknown space our own stories, questions and the importance of our existence. In the darkness we seek the light and sometimes the stars seem to answer.

For Dark Skies , Man works with a large group of forty-five musicians whose instruments and sounds find each other without conforming to a classical orchestra composition. The orchestra has an exceptional line-up, including seven percussionists from Slagwerk Den Haag and a deconstructed organ that places a heavy focus on the outermost regions of the human hearing spectrum. The highest and lowest frequencies, up to and including infrasound, are distributed electronically through the room via loudspeakers, subwoofers and objects. At the center of it all is one extraordinary human 'voice machine', the legendary lead singer of the group EINSTÜRZENDE NEUBAUTEN, Blixa Bargeld.

The special arrangement allows the audience to move freely between the different clusters of musicians and objects, which are scattered in the space.

Jamie Male:

Nocturnal animals hunt their prey in the dark. The lamps that illuminate our nights threaten their existence and pollute our own view of the astronomical marvels. It is only through dark skies that we can see beyond the limitations of our own atmosphere and thus broaden the horizon of our existential limits.'