Commissions to Simon Steen-Andersen & Helena Tulve

The Biennale Musica Out of Stage presents experimental music theatre as part of the Venice Biennale, including projects of instrumental theatre, experimental performances, performative lectures, and performative sound installations. Composition commissions will be awarded to Danish composer Simon Steen-Andersen and Estonian composer Helena Tulve, among others, made possible by the Ernst von Siemens Music Foundation.

Simon Steen-Andersen creates a new experimental music theatre, The Return, for 3 singers, baroque ensemble, objects, and video, based on Il ritorno d’Ulisse in patria by Claudio Monteverdi. The dramaturgy of the work deals with the search for the Teatro San Cassiano and the Teatro Santi Giovanni e Paolo in Venice, the first public theatres that have disappeared today. In the process, Steen-Andersen explores baroque and contemporary techniques and links them in his new opera.

Helena Tulve’s new work Visions is a contemporary sacred performance based on Venetian medieval manuscripts found in the library of Santa Maria della Fava. Together with the choir La Cappella Marciana of the Basilica di San Marco, one of the oldest choirs in the world, Tulve creates her new work conceived for the space of the cathedral. The interplay of various instrumental and vocal sources inside the cathedral transforms it into a gigantic instrument that pulsates in resonance with the religious dramaturgy.

The aim of the Biennale Musica is to establish a link between the experimentalism of Venetian baroque opera and the dramaturgical development of contemporary music theatre, in collaboration with Venice’s most important institutions and their historic venues.

Further information:
labiennale.org

Dates

September 16, 2022
Teatro Piccolo Arsenale, Venice

September 19, 2022
Teatro Goldoni, Venice

September 21, 2022
Basilica di San Marco, Venice

September 22, 2022
Teatro alle Tese, Venice

September 24, 2022
Scuola Grande di San Rocco, Venice