Commission to Laura Bowler

After working together for the Donaueschingen Music Days 2024, Laura Bowler and lovemusic felt inspired to create a new project together: an artistic work in the form of a concert. After discussing various ideas, the themes of grief and loss resonated most strongly with the group. The result is The Sad Album, the first of several projects that lovemusic is planning over the next three years. Invited artists will not only compose but also perform and join the collective for the duration of the project. The Ernst von Siemens Music Foundation is supporting the commission to Laura Bowler.

Together, Laura Bowler and the musicians of lovemusic will form a tragic troupe reminiscent of the commedia dell’arte, leading through the unpredictable landscape of grief. This album, titled The Sad Album, is both devastating in its raw sincerity and absurd in its hilarity, drawing on the personal experiences of grief and sudden loss faced by Laura and the members of the collective. It highlights the simple, typical behaviours that occur in times of mourning, as well as the moments when one gets lost in the labyrinth of emotional torment.

The Sad Album will be Laura’s first work designed specifically for performance and recording. It is divided into seven songs, like a pop album, and inspired by the seven stages of loss described by Swiss psychiatrist Dr Elisabeth Kübler-Ross: denial, anger, pain, guilt, bargaining, depression and acceptance. These seven ‘songs’ are punctuated by instrumental interludes. Albums often accompany us through certain phases of our lives, and the aim here is to create a new concert experience that can be experienced with the same familiarity as one of our favourite albums and that generates the same emotional intensity as our most treasured ‘power ballad’.

The composition draws on a variety of musical aesthetics and crosses the boundaries between concert, performance and music theatre to offer the audience a combined auditory and visual experience. The musicians go beyond their roles as musical performers and embody various performative roles within the performance.

Further information:
collectivelovemusic.com

Dates

March 24, 2025
Césaré Reims

September 20, 2025
Festival Musica, Strasbourg

April 21, 2026
Festival New Music Dublin