Georg Nussbaumer

SCHWEIGEN & MUh | OPEN FIELDS - Art and Agriculture

14.10.2023

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Date

14.10.2023

Time

6pm - 8:30pm

Location

Art in Public Space

Meeting point

Wolfbauerhof, Johnsbach 78, 8912 Admont

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About the
Event

Opening of the project "SCHWEIGEN & MUh. An Opera of Silence and Darkness with cows and concert grand" by Georg Nussbaumer in Admont, in the context of "OPEN FIELDS - Art and Agriculture".

OPEN FIELDS - Art and Agriculture

Reflections on the sensitive and diverse interaction between humans and nature have existed since prehistory in the form of art. The OPEN FIELDS project focuses on essential aspects at the local level, namely those of agriculture in direct contact with art. This meeting of two apparent opposites is to be given space and time in a respectful setting on equal terms and in critical examination.

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Georg Nussbaumer

SCHWEIGEN & MUh

SChWEIGEN & MUh. Eine Oper der Stille und der Finsternis mit Kühen und Konzertflügel (SChWEIGEN & MUh. An Opera of Silence and Darkness with cows and concert grand) is the result of composer, director and installation artist Georg Nussbaumer’s exploration of Barbara Hofer and Andreas Wolf’s farm in Johnsbach im Gesäuse, inspired by Hans Lebert’s novel Die Wolfshaut (The Wolf Skin). Nussbaumer repurposes the nocturnal “wolf farm” into a stage, backdrop, theatrical machine and auditorium and yet leaves it (almost) completely in the dark. In the first act of the music theater, the Italian pianist Marino Formenti plays the work Die Vollendete, 2ter Satz (The Finished Symphony, 2nd Movement), written by Nussbaumer, which he himself (2023) describes as “a rumination of Schubert’s Winter Journey.” It is not played in a “classical” setting, but in the middle of a herd of suckler cows, which can definitely influence the music. The second act calls “inaudible opera singers, prima donnas and heroic tenors of silence, queens of the night and princes of darkness” (Nussbaumer 2023) from the Gesäuse region, the choir of the Admont Abbey Grammar School, the Admont Men’s Choral Society and musicians from Johnsbach onto the dark stage. Lit merely by the rising new moon, the surreal scenery will then suddenly be illuminated by micro-scenes, lasting for seconds, that bear relations to the immediate surroundings, old legends and new stories, played by actors from the region and choreographed together with Nussbaumer.

With: Marino Formenti, Performer from the Gesäuse, Choir of the Stiftsgymnasiums Admont, Männergesangsverein Admont (Bernhard Ehrenfellner), Jana Rothleitner & Michael Gröschl (trombone) | Stefan Stangl (tuba) and the cows of the Wolfbauer.