Berne Music Festival: going into raptures

In their summary, the organizers highlight the many international guests and the numerous world premieres during the almost forty concerts. The intention of the Bern Music Festival to promote collaboration between musicians from Bern and international guests was thus "uniquely successful" this year. The composer in residence was Michael Pelzel. According to managing director Andri Probst, a total of just over 2500 admissions were counted. Although this was around 500 fewer than last year, it was in line with expectations given the difficult conditions caused by the coronavirus crisis.

A visit on September 2 made it clear how fruitfully the topic could be explored in a variety of ways. The installation "swarm-like by Fabrizio Di Salvo in the Aula Progr provoked questions about the nature of rapture in its contradictory design.

Concrete parallels between the characteristics of flocks of birds and improvisations based on Renaissance movement models were presented by bird migration researcher Silke Bauer and the La Cetra Vokalensemble Basel in the event Swarm intelligence I: Animal swarms demonstrated.

Showing how swarms of mosquitoes interact with cello sounds was the aim of Insect songs (2018), an improvisational concert with mosquitoes and cello by Ursula Damm, Teresa Carrasco and Christina Meissner.

And the world premiere of Thomas Kessler's Oratorio (2020) in Bern Minster. This work will also be performed on September 18 in Basel at the Festival Periods to hear.