Every year, the Ruhrtriennale invites contemporary artists to perform amid the monumental industrial architecture of the Ruhr metropolitan region. Halls, coking plants, machine houses, slag heaps, and wastelands of the mining and steel industries transform into impressive venues at the intersection of musical theatre, drama, performance, and visual arts. They make the Ruhrtriennale a festival that is unique worldwide, and sure to attract international attention.

In 2022, the second year of Barbara Frey’s directorship, various works from our publishing group find themselves centre-stage: In the opening premiere “Ich geh unter lauter Schatten” works by Grisey, Scelsi and Xenakis, among others, were scenically interpreted in relation to the theme of “death.” Sarah Nemtsov's instrumental cycle HAUS, composed of new and existing miniatures, sees its scenic premiere in the Turbine Hall, located next to the Jahrhunderthalle. Also on the program is the German premiere of Sarah Nemtsov’s piece MOOS, with the Klangforum Wien under Patrick Hahn.

Sarah Nemtsov: HAUS

As the former steam power station of the Bochumer Verein, the Turbine hall with its 1,065 sqm offers space for up to 600 people. It is a podium for galas, smaller concerts, conferences and receptions. As a special highlight, the listed turbines blend harmoniously into the scenery and give the location a special atmosphere.

Sarah Nemtsov’s instrumental cycle HAUS (2013–2022) has moved into the space, felt its surfaces and innards, built »rooms« on top of each other and snuggled into a »garret«, put in windows to the imagination and can no longer find the »door«. Solo miniatures and ensemble pieces for harp, flute, clarinet, percussion and electro-acoustic instruments create a multi-dimensional structure and negotiate complex states of community, isolation and lack of contact. The direction and video work of Heinrich Horwitz and Rosa Wernecke trace memories of violent experiences, tearing down the old to create the nucleus for a new, utopian construction. The audience navigates this staged installation with its own steps and can select visual axes and speeds of movement to suit itself, while the spatial composition continually pushes the senses into a state of productive disorientation. Queer transformation processes seize both bodies and space, causing dizziness and peeling away the surface of the walls, exposing their brickwork: »This is a dark house, very big. / I made it myself, / Cell by cell from a quiet corner, / Chewing at the grey paper, / Oozing the glue drops, / Whistling, wiggling my ears, / Thinking of something else.« Sylvia Plath

Go to presenter page

Press quotes on Nemtsov's HAUS

"Musically very interesting."

"Their instruments are set up and they play strong music for us that is easy to listen to – rhythmically accentuated, full of rough, scabby timbres from which the different-sized gongs, handled as if incidentally, stand out almost like a sonic idyll. Abstract projections and a giant cloth are used to create images – from a glistening waterfall to the illusion that the enormous, old, and immobile Siemens turbine in the centre of the hall is turning. [It is nice] that, on leaving the hall at the end, Sebastian Berweck and Jonathan Shapiro again start making enchanting music together, as if Sarah Nemtsov has built a uniquely radiant setting for a percussion-electro jam session. But here, too, the interaction remains on an entirely musical level."

"Sarah Nemtsov’s ability to fill a room with sound, and find her own unique way of doing so, takes the reins for the evening proper. What then happens between those old walls and is unleashed starts working, develops intensity, and offers variety despite a sustained ground current. It is an unchained frenzy of sound that opens up space for associations to be made but is above-all based on the (self)reflection of what has been composed, and the independent power of individual instruments."

Score of HAUS

View work details

ICH GEH UNTER LAUTER SCHATTEN

with Grisey, Scelsi and Xenakis

Right at the beginning, the Ruhrtriennale explored a serious topic – the opening production, with works by Grisey (Quatre chants pour franchir le seuil), Scelsi (Okanagon) and Xenakis (Nuits), among others, was entirely dedicated to the examination of the theme of death. Featuring the Klangforum Wien, the Chorwerk Ruhr and soloists under the musical direction of Peter Rundel, this high-quality evening was musically and atmospherically impressive.

Go to presenter page

Press quotes

"Not one of the selected pieces was written for the theatre – with each bearing an entire world of sound and expression upon itself. It was possible, nevertheless, to musically transfer such different compositions into a stringent sequence that is musically overwhelming, and – in fact – inalienable, by making complex, essential, and largely unknown compositions available in model interpretations."

"The evening was a musical triumph. Contemporary music festivals have a tendency to program concerts as if coloring by numbers, choosing a prefabricated mix of representatives of different musical styles in the name of a pipe-dream completeness. In contrast, the program for “I walk among many shadows” was made up of five works with common aesthetic preoccupations and with similarly high levels of musical craft, performed with sensitivity and vigor by Klangforum and the vocal ensemble Chorwerk Ruhr. (For example: Rundel chose exactly the right tempo for the second movement of the “Quatre chants,” which is often performed too slowly). This program was a pleasure especially potent because of its rarity: An entire new-music evening hearing works in a single, rich aesthetic vein. The imposing, industrial Jahrhunderthalle in the city of Bochum, lit evocatively by Ulrich Schneider, undergirded the cosmic austerity of the repertoire."

"The sound sets your teeth on edge. Gérard Grisey’s music calls for microtonal deviations from standard pitch. The musicians of Klangforum Wien play them with such delicious precision that you squirm in your seat. The human ear is seldom capable of discerning microtones exactly – even a quarter-tone pushes our limits – so when the Viennese ensemble applies itself to finder deviations, you feel rather than hear them. It is this perfectionism in impossible demands and unplayable scores that makes Klanforum Wien such a thrilling ensemble to hear. They, along with the similarly obsessive vocal ensemble Chrowerk Ruhr, form the core of Ich geh unter lauter Schatten /I Wals Beneath Many Shadows), which opened this quar’s Ruhtrtriennale on Thursday."