JUST A SOUNDING HOUSE

The project JUST A SOUNDING HOUSE gives young people access to contemporary art music. It is based on the compositional approach of Manos Tsangaris, which focuses on conscious listening and invites participants to engage creatively with media translations.

The young people first discover their own listening experience, which they then translate into performative or audiovisual installations (using recordings as well as live music).

In doing so, they come to realize that a media translation never replaces the original, but rather creates a new, independent sound event. This highlights just how much our everyday environment is composed—and how strongly media influences shape our perception. The project thus carries a socio-political dimension: young people, who are often more “consumers” than creators, experience themselves as active participants and artistic agents.

A strong, interdisciplinary network of partners is formed with the contemporary music ensemble El Perro Andaluz, sound artist Nikolaus Woernle, director Barbara Lubich, music therapist Marieluise Herrmann, and the independent radio station Coloradio Dresden. Close cooperation with a secondary school in Dresden’s Pieschen district and the Zentralwerk Dresden learning center creates ideal conditions: rehearsal spaces, performance opportunities, and an open-minded faculty enable sustainable work with young talent.

The goal is to introduce eighth-grade students to various aspects of contemporary art music during a project week and to help them become confident listeners and creative shapers of their own sound environment. The project week is prepared by an interdisciplinary team in collaboration with the teachers at Oberschule Pieschen.

For many years, the Zentralwerk has been a vibrant hub of contemporary music theater—not least because artists such as the ensemble El Perro Andaluz, composers John Moran, Nikolaus Woernle, and Volker Sondermann, as well as filmmaker and boundary-crosser Barbara Lubich, have established their studios here.

The project week revolves around the conceptual world of composer Manos Tsangaris, who maintains close artistic ties with these artists and, together with them, views music theater not merely as a performance form but as a shared field of research—a space where music, image, and scene interrogate and reorder our media-shaped perception.

With this project, made possible by the Ernst von Siemens Music Foundation, the young people have the opportunity to discover the Zentralwerk as a SOUNDING HOUSE and make it their own space.

Further information:
zentralwerk.de

Date

August 13, 2027
Henny Brenner Hall, Zentralwerk, Dresden