Die (s)panische Fliege is an old boulevard theatre play from 1913 not seen on stage very often these days. The adaption Herbert Fritsch staged at the Volksbühne (where else?) is outrageously stupid, funny, strange, artistic … with a great stage setting consisting of a huge carpet with a trampoline in the middle! 

The actors do an amazing job of walking “funny”, acting idiotic and using the trampoline to jump all over the place … the performance looks a lot of fun, and has it’s moments … 

As every year it’s Easter Fire time. Some of us go out to Kiki’s brothers place. We burn old Christmas trees, eat, drink, chat and …

… jump the fire. Here’s Saudia Young doing her first jump. Hurrah!

I feel privileged being invited by my old pal Moe Jaksch to watch and listen to him play with his soul brother Beat Lee Burns (formerly known as Alfons X) on drums, and collaborators Phil Marone on guitar and Marq Wenzel on piano.

They rock out in Moe’s living room in his beautiful house on the outskirts of Berlin … with Kitty Hoff on vocals.

His family turned their place into a miniature concert hall, moving their furniture to make room for the 60 o so people who packed the place, handing out wine and food to after the show. 

They now go on tour in Germany with her new album.

Today is the world premiere of Pills or Serenades (a study in moods and modes) by Brazilian composer Chico Mello

Pills or Serenades is an opera of sorts. People sing. People play instruments. People walk across stage. They also do things. They stand up and they sit down. They sing “darf” (German for “may”) quite a lot. The set is designed and they wear costumes. It is 80 minutes long.

This is what the press kit has to say about what all this: 

The work resembles a sensuous test assembly that enables comparative listening. Ambiguous text sequences are set to music in a “vowels-generated” way: a certain sound of a modus or scale is assigned to each vowel. In this way, the text determines the melody and the implied assessments of traditional melodic phrases are set to music multiple times so that the texts can seem happy, sad, even-tempered or exaggerated.
The viewer is observer and witness of this emotional rollercoaster between natural participation and enjoyment of a highly artificial language, moods as artefacts.

Ah …

Well, the ensemble is impressive. A lot of rehearsal time has gone into this piece. They are in sync. They breathe. So far so wonderful. But … whatever the idea behind all this is, all this work, all this orderly walking and singing and breathing, all these notes and phrases exemplify that book-keeping differs significantly from book writing.

Opening night of Maerzmusik, the great festival for 21st-century classical music in Berlin.

Here are Slagwerk Den Haag …

… playing Timber by Michael Gordon

The first 10 minutes are fantastic. A whirling world of sounds, melodies and patterns, an orgiastic sensation for ears and eyes. This is what this festival can be about. Thrilling. Inspiring.

Then, slowly, as the piece progresses … I start noticing trivia. Crinkles in the trousers of one of the musicians for instance. Then the gentleman next to me nods off. I wonder what happened. 

Back at the Lido - which is obviously developing into my favorite club - to see my favorite surf rockers Boom Pam.

Driven by Itamar Levi on drums, steadied by Tuby Zolotov on tuba and colored and fire-worked by Uri Kinrot on Mediterranean twang guitar and rich baritone vocals they play an almost shy set. “Shy” seems the odd term out trying to describe their music, as what they play is mainly driving instrumental dance music. At the same time this is what I actually like about them. They rock out, and at the same time - especially Uri and Tuby - seem physically so absorbed by the very act of playing, that little energy is left for any outward-going animation routine. 

Very different Tod Ashly of the evenings main band Firewater. He does his best to be an inspiring front man, using all his tricks - big rock hand gestures, dub vocal effects, and “heys”- to impress. But he too is shy and his endeavors fall short to cover up that his hired hands on drums, dhol drum, guitar, bass and trombone are just that. I like his voice though.

Hanging out in Rheinsberg (just north of Berlin) …

… with opera director Frank Matthus.

Hey, we almost have the same hairdo!!!

The obelisk in the background was built by Frederic the Greats brother Prince Heinrich in remembrance of all those people his brother forgot to mention in his memoirs. Now that’s a statement.

A little later General von Steuben (yes THE Steuben who hung out with Washington back in the balmy days of starting up the United States) had the brilliant idea to ask just this Prince Heinrich to be be King of America. Other founding fathers had other ideas, and eventually this one was dropped.

All this of course is very opera. And that is why I’m here.

This weekend we gave our first 17 Hippies workshop for bands. We were not sure what to expect … it was packed. The 7 bands were: CAS Orkestar (with 18 people), Küchenkapelle (5 musicians), Fräulein Winkelmann (9-13 musicians), Folk FH (5), all from Berlin, Fanfare Trotwaar (9), from the Netherlands, Zwerxt from Bavaria (6) and Bartuschka from Weimar (3)

It was a great weekend with lots of fun, and great music. Uwe, Volker, Carsten and I did the coaching.

Here’s me showing some signs for conducting:

Almost exactly one year we started our Metamorphosis project. I went to Israel and Palestine to meet musicians, and - in a way - start my own little metamorphosis. I’m not quite sure what I was expecting, or how quickly everything would come together, but I do know that I was expecting a first album to come out round about now. Well … it’s all taking a bit longer. For many different reasons.

To go on with my own metamorphosis Kiki and myself revisited Jerusalem …

and Tel Aviv …

Meeting friends, hanging out, and relaxing.

For more on METAMORHOSIS … check out my post on 9th February 2012.

Buddy Sacher and Meret Becker crooning at the Berlinale today.

In fact they were the only thing alive at the ZDF “get together” for film music composers (the ZDF is one of the huge German public TV stations). Scary how all these people today had me believe that music is dreary, boring and absolutely no fun.