Junges Theater Bonn: TKKG - caught in the past
The play by the Junges Theater Bonn is dedicated to Beethoven's 250th birthday and leads the youthful investigators Karl, Tim, Gaby and Klößchen as well as the audience into the virtually reconstructed Bonn of the year 1786, where Beethoven lived as a 15-year-old boy. The focus is on the phenomenon of escape from reality into a virtual game world - a tendency intensified by the Corona crisis. The premiere of this digital play took place on September 5 at the Telekom Forum and was broadcasted on MagentaTV.
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'Egmont's Revenge' or the fabulous journey of little green Ludwig
In 2019 the artistic directors of the Youth Jazz Orchestra of North Rhine-Westphalia were commissioned to write jazz adaptations of his works for the Beethoven anniversary. At that time, of course, nobody could have guessed that the performance of these works would have to be postponed indefinitely due to the pandemic. Instead, the JJO moved its activities (like so many other musicians) to the Internet: The commissioned works were recorded individually and for the most part from home, the entire jazz orchestra only comes together virtually on the net. Stephan Jochen Schulze and his version of Beethoven's 'Egmont Overture' (Opus 84) could not have done otherwise: the notes were all recorded, but the images were missing. Together with three students from the Düsseldorf University of Applied Sciences, Schulze developed an idea that was inspired by a film classic: While in the 2001 film 'The Fabulous World of Amelie' it is a garden gnome that travels the world in a miraculous way, in the music video Beethoven himself experiences similar adventures as a smiling sculpture by the artist Ottmar Hörl.
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Jazz meets organ: Star organist Barbara Dennerlein as guest
In the course of the organ festival in the Rhein-Sieg district, jazz organist Barbara Dennerlein will play the 'Queen of Instruments' on Sunday, August 23 at 5 pm in the Auferstehungskirche in Siegburg. Through her masterful control of the pedals, she succeeds by scooping the full works she composed especially for the pipe organ with immense sound possibilities and in making the church organ, which at times seems a little sluggish, vibrate.
Program Video
Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin: Beethoven exhibition
From the largest collection of Beethoven autographs of the Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin, an exhibition unprecedented in its quality and richness has been compiled. The exhibition "This Kiss of the Whole World" is part of the nationwide program BTHVN2020 on the occasion of the 250th anniversary of the composer Ludwig van Beethoven. The exhibition is also available virtually. In addition, further content has been made available digitally, such as some 3D objects and music autographs. For the 9th symphony there is also an own website.
To the virtual exhibition
FLOW-RA - Pastoral Inspiration
In the Beethoven Year 2020, the artists of FLOW-RA's Forest and Meadow Concerts bow to Beethoven and dedicate a special series of five concerts to him, transforming the 6th Symphony into the here and now.
On stage three top-class musicians, around the stage, on bushes, flowers and trees: sensors. The musicians use them to capture electrical signals from the plants, which, orchestrated with their own sounds, they relate to Beethoven's music. The pianist records them, plays them or improvises. Flowing, unexpected and free. Playfully inspired by the pastoral environment. Everything around - the rustling of the wind, the chirping of birds, the gurgling of a brook - merges with the instrumental music to form a natural orchestra.
Watch the video Go to the website
"Chord of the World - Beethoven, Life and Work" - Preview of the lecture
The lecture "Chord of the World - Beethoven, Life and Work" will take place on September 20 at the Bürgerkulturzentrum kabelmetal in Windeck. The author Prof. Dr. Matthias Henke will read from his recently published biography of Beethoven. A preview in the form of an interview has now been published by the organizer, Kulturinitiative Windeck e.V., on its YouTube channel. Henke portrays Beethoven as someone who was as exposed to the radical upheavals of his time as he was creatively involved in shaping them by creating works in which his contemporaries saw the emergence of a new society.
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Beethoven Laboratory 2020: Virtual Festival
As a virtual festival with a virtual exhibition, the Akademie der Künste presents online the programme 'Beethoven Laboratory 2020', which has been produced behind closed doors, with over 10 world premieres, a sound installation, a music theatre and an exhibition on the theme of experimentation. Originally planned for mid-March, the festival was intended to make the musical and interdisciplinary results of a four-year collaboration between young composers accessible live to a broad public. Due to the shutdown necessitated by the Corona pandemic, the concerts could not be performed in front of an audience and were instead recorded in sound and vision. These works can now be listened to and explored.
Festival's website
Beethoven-Lounge of the Beethoven Orchester Bonn
The Beethoven Lounge is a musical talk show that takes place every month at the Pantheon Bonn. Currently, it is planned to broadcast the formal in digital form until further notice. Dirk Kaftan and his musicians welcome guests from far and near, culture, politics and society, stars and shooting stars and deal with topics concerning the Beethoven Anniversary Year in a relaxed atmosphere. It's all about outlooks, reviews, philosophy, music, art and of course a little wink!
Watch video of June, 5th 2020
Neuland: BE:Community | Stegreif.orchester: Beethoven 9 plus
The Konzerthaus Dortmund currently offers a large number of videos almost daily on its YouTube channel. Among other things, the works on the project "Neuland: BE:Community", which is supported by BTHVN2020, are also shown. The Beethoven Project is a collaborative effort by the stegreif. orchester together with Community Musicans and Dortmunders, which will be performed in autumn 2020. This interactive web exchange changes one's own view of music and encourages participation.
Watch on Youtube
BTHVN2020 | Detmold: Digital lecture series 'Beethoven | Spaces'
The Musicology Department of the Detmold University of Music and the University of Paderborn invites you to a public digital lecture series. In a total of six events, Beethoven specialists from Germany and Austria will use lectures and subsequent live chats to convey methods and models of thought for contemporary and international musicology, which sees itself as a cultural science and as such has long since ceased to merely ask about masters and works, but rather explores the real musical spaces and concrete ways of dealing with music.
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260 days streaming with Susanne Kessel
Bonn pianist Susanne Kessel has set herself the task of digitally processing her BTHVN2020 project '250 piano pieces for Beethoven'. From April 1 to December 16, 2020, one of the 260 composers involved in her project will be featured daily on her Facebook page with his piece. The recordings will be streamed for one day. Throughout the day, the respective composer will also be available for chatting under his or her post.
Facebook Project's website
Waiting for #bebeethoven
#bebeethoven opens a visionary window into the future of art music and music making with very special, sometimes spectacular presentations of his twelve artists. Online, changing contents are now presented every two weeks as a foretaste of the exhibition "Welcome to #bebeethoven". This exhibition, planned at the end of the #beethoven project, will be shown in its entirety and in its original version in October 2020, together with the two festivals in Esslingen and Bonn.
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Podcast: The importance of Beethoven for Salvador Dalí
The Arp Museum shows in the current and unfortunately currently closed exhibition "SALVADOR DALÍ UND HANS ARP - the birth of memory" parallels in the work of the two contemporaries that have gone unnoticed until now. The artists each developed a unique visual language in the environment of the Paris Surrealists. In addition, there is an exhibition section dealing with Dalí's fascination with the radical artistry of Ludwig van Beethoven. The focus here is a Beethoven portrait of Dalí.
The Podcast
Darius Darek - World BOAT Session
The musician, DJ and transformation activist DARIUS DAREK has been organizing the Bonn 'World Beat Party' in different locations for 15 years. Whether in clubs, opera houses, museums, cultural centres, at UNO conferences, on boats or in the tram: there are no limits to the musical variety of his sets. With the slogan 'REDUCE REMIX REUSE' Darius Darek produced the 'World BEAThoven Album' (BTHVN2020), whose tracks and messages can be heard and seen in this video. The dj set was recorded on board of the MS Beethoven.
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Musical Care Package
For quite some time now, the Kreuzkirche has had a blog and its own YouTube channel, on which interested people can inform themselves about the musical activities of the Kreuzkirche or even participate in them. Now in the Corona Crisis there is a musical greeting every Saturday in the form of an online care package on the blog. The musicians also use the digital platform to rehearse for their performance of Beethoven's 'Missa solemnis'. The concert is scheduled to take place on November 22, 2020 and is sponsored by BTHVN20.
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Beethoven's musical world. A Pasticcio
With the new series Knechtsteden.Lab, the Festival Alte Musik Knechtsteden is expanding its range of mediation services into digital space for the first time. Starting with the pieces that will be performed in the concert Beethoven's musical world - A Pasticcio on September 22nd at Knechtsteden Monastery, this website offers a playful insight into Beethoven's life and work. Everything is scientifically sound and digitally processed. After September 22nd, the concert recordings will flow into the Beethoven.Lab as audio samples and round off the online offer.
To the website
'Beethoven @ Bad Honnef tanzt'
The BTHVN2020-supported organizer 'Bad Honnef tanzt e.V.' has produced a song and a music video as an encouragement during the corona crisis, showing rehearsals for the four-day dance festival which was originally planned to take place in May 2020. The dance festival which has been held since 2012, is the opening event for Bad Honnef's Beethoven Festival Week. A new date for the festival on the island of Grafenwerth has not yet been fixed. Over a period of five months, choreographers worked with over 140 pupils of six schools in Bad Honnef to create a full-length dance theatre.
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TONY CONRAD exhibition at Kölnischer Kunstverein
The TONY CONRAD show at the Kölnischer Kunstverein, which is supported by BTHVN2020, is currently not open. Since the children's workshop 'Tony Conrad - Inventing Acoustical Tools' with the artists Jasmin Werner and Bradley Davies, that was planned in the course of the exhibition, unfortunately also has to be cancelled, a kind of playful video tutorial has been created (video: Krzysztof Honowski). Here you can find a video tutorial for at home. Tinkering and making music is expressly desired!
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LVR-Museums Bonn is offering 'museum at home'
From now on you can explore the LVR-Landesmuseum Bonn from the comfort of your own home. With videos, tutorials and lots of collected knowledge, there are now digital insights - including the current interactive exhibition for the Beethoven anniversary year 2020 'Music! Hearing - making - feeling'. Every Monday, Wednesday and Saturday there is something new to discover on the museum's blog, the 'museum at home'.
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Live recording of 'Ein Brief / Christus am Ölberge'
CHRISTUS AM ÖLBERGE - one of the first major works that Beethoven premiered after realizing his deafness. Manfred Trojahn composed a prologue to a scenic performance of this oratorio under the title EIN BRIEF. It begins with the background of Beethoven's desperate creative work and thus opens up new biographical perspectives on this decisive period of his life. It is directed by Reinhild Hoffmann. The premiere of the work took place in February at the Theater Bonn. Here is a recording of the production by SWR.
To the live recording
The Beethoven tour as app
The Beethoven tour is the central project of the BTHVN2020 main theme 'Bonn cosmopolitan'. The multimedia tour with stations on various themes and aspects of Ludwig van Beethoven is intended to bring the artist's life in public space in a new way. The installation of the tour is to be permanently preserved after 2020. The app for the new Beethoven tour BTHVN Story and BTHVN Region is intended exclusively for mobile devices.
Go to the app
BTHVN2020 App: the augmented reality city tour
In the app, which was commissioned by Deutsche Telekom AG, the 22-year-old virtual Beethoven takes users to seven places in downtown Bonn. The places played a significant role in his life. He explains the most important details in each case. Augmented reality, 3D objects and overlay functions of buildings that no longer exist bring users closer to Beethoven's most important stations before he left for Vienna. Selected piano pieces by young international musicians of the Telekom Piano Competition complete this experience. The playful passion is also rewarded: At each sight, virtual lost objects such as music sheets, chandeliers and coins can be collected and put into a virtual backpack. The reward is a digital gift.
Android devices iOS devices
360° Walk: 'Beethoven - World.Citizen.Music'
Though museums have to close at the moment due to the spread of the coronavirus, the Bundeskunsthalle Bonn continues to invite visitors digitally. 'Beethoven - World.Citizen.Music' provides a lively insight into the nature and work of Ludwig van Beethoven, his environment and, of course, his music. The show can be seen digital until Beethoven's 250th birthday on 17 December 2020.
To the digital exhibition
BTHVN2020 Musikfrachter
Actually the BTHVN2020 Musikfrachter was supposed to travel from Bonn to Vienna as Germany's largest mobile music mediation project. However, due to the Corona pandemic, the musical river cruise was cancelled at short notice. As an alternative, the BTHVN2020 Musikfrachter was spontaneously turned into a production studio and recordings were made with different artists. The result is a two times twelve hour stream which can be watched here.
Stream
BeethovenBot
The BeethovenBot, a project of the Literaturhaus Bonn supported by BTHVN2020, is a virtual presence of Ludwig van Beethoven on Twitter. On the basis of his letters and conversation books, a digital personality emerges which is not limited to historical depictions but also enters into contemporary, entertaining interaction. The bot reacts to current events and answers user questions. His statements are original Beethoven quotations; they come from a text pool into which Beethoven's written statements are fed.