Festive opening of the season

It has become tradition for the festive opening of the Bayer Arts & Culture season to feature a combination of music, a talk and an exhibition, each of which addresses the new theme.

This year is no exception. Following the welcome speech by Michael Schade, Head of Communications at Bayer AG, the philosopher Martin Seel, who lectures at the University of Frankfurt, will give a keynote address in which he will consider the relevance today of epistemology to those of us who are not philosophers. What can we know? In a recent article for the weekly newspaper DIE ZEIT, Seel said: “What might appear to be a weakness or even the eternal vice of philosophy is in fact its strong point. Its primary virtue lies in its persistent doubt – even about (excessive) doubt itself. It relies on the mechanisms of our understanding without trusting them entirely (…). Ever since Socrates, philosophy has been synonymous with antidemagogy: resistance – based on argument – to the belief that we have everything under control (…).”

The opening of the second Labor Berlin (Berlin laboratory) exhibition held in conjunction with the Haus der Kulturen der Welt in Berlin will take place on September 4, 2011. The two artists Züli Aladağ and Reynold Reynolds each approach the season’s theme Knowledge and Belief in their own special way. Prejudice as a specific form of “not knowing” is the subject of Züli Aladağ’s video installation The Others, in which he exposes the contradictory nature of everyday racism. In his work, Reynold Reynolds, who was born in Alaska in 1966, investigates the physical undercurrents of human existence and defines the interface between science and art. Our exhibition will feature photographs from The Lost, his series of portraits of people who disappeared during the tumultuous 1930s and whose fate remains a mystery.

Knowledge and Belief also play an important role in music – whether as the theme of individual works or as a simple, yet complex substructure. After all, how could a composer write music without knowledge of the technical aspects? However, it is even more interesting when knowledge and belief combine to create what could be called “certainty”, and not just in a religious sense. This is the leitmotif of the programme for the musical part of the festive opening, which features familiar works by Johann Sebastian Bach as well as a completely unknown cantata, Mein Herz schwimmt in Blut, by Christoph Graupner, a contemporary of Bach’s who lived and worked in Hamburg and Darmstadt.

Martin Seel is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Frankfurt am Main, where he specialises in theoretical philosophy. He studied German language and literature, philosophy and history in Marburg and Constance. After obtaining his Ph.D. and professorial qualification at Constance, he was appointed to a professorship first in Hamburg, then in Giessen, before moving to the University of Frankfurt. His main areas of research include epistemology, the ethics of good living, the aesthetics of nature and the theory of the arts. He has published numerous books, the most recent being Die Macht des Erscheinens. Texte zur Ästhetik (The Power of Appearing. Texts on Aesthetics, 2007) and Theorien (Theories, 2009). His latest book 111 Tugenden, 111 Laster. Eine philosophische Revue (111 Virtues, 111 Vices. A Philosophical Review) will be published shortly.

The soprano Katja Stuber began studying voice under Christian Gerhaher in Munich in 2004 while still studying music and German language and literature at the university there. She completed her singing degree with distinction in 2008, having also attended oratorio and lied classes held by Christoph Hammer, Juliane Banse and Helmut Deutsch. In 2008 she began postgraduate studies under Ruth Ziesak in Saarbrücken. Katja Stuber has already appeared as a soloist in concert with well-known orchestras and conductors such as Thomas Hengelbrock, Helmuth Rilling and Lothar Zagrosek. Since 2009 she has been a full-time ensemble member of Munich’s Staatstheater am Gärtnerplatz. She will give her debut at the Bayreuth Festival in summer 2011.

From 1985 until 2004, Werner Ehrhardt was artistic director of the world-renowned chamber orchestra Concerto Köln, with which he gave performances in most of the world’s leading concert halls. His artistic standing is reflected in more than 40 CDs, many of which have won major international awards. In 2004 he founded l’arte del mondo and has rapidly positioned this ensemble among the leading orchestras performing works on original instruments.

l’arte del mondo’s recent guest appearances include the Ludwigsburger Schlossfestspiele, the Beethoven Festival in Bonn, and concerts in the Konzerthaus am Gendarmenmarkt in Berlin and the Cité de la Musique in Paris. The ensemble’s outstanding reputation is shown by acclaimed CDs and its cooperation with major international soloists such as Magdalena Kožená, Christine Schäfer, Thomas Zehetmair and Xavier de Maistre.


Programme

Welcome: Michael Schade (Head of Communications, Bayer AG)

Keynote: Prof. Martin Seel

Concert: 

Johann Sebastian Bach: Brandenburg Concerto No. 3 in G major, BWV 1048

Christoph Graupner: Cantata Mein Herz schwimmt in Blut, GWV 1152/12b

Johann Sebastian Bach: Herr, der du stark und mächtig bist Aria from the cantata Meine Seel’ erhebt den Herrn, BWV 10

Johann Sebastian Bach: Cantata Jauchzet Gott in allen Landen, BWV 51

l’arte del mondo
Katja Stuber, soprano
Werner Ehrhardt, conductor

SUN 11.09 | 6.00 pm | Bayer Kulturhaus, Leverkusen