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With the "Lied.Labs", the Liedzentrum dares to experiment: new forms, unusual places, surprising combinations and the lifting of boundaries.
The programmes focus on the immediacy of the voice. Young as well as experienced singers and curators are given the space to test their personal vision of what the tradition of song in its manifold forms still has to say to us today and in the future. In recent years, four Lied.Labs have emerged that continue to think about the Lied in unconventional ways.
Animal companions - fantastic creatures
The animal kingdom has repeatedly made symbolic appearances not only in art and cult objects, but also in literature and music, for example in the famous fables of the Frenchman Jean de La Fontaine. Teodora Oprișor, the Romanian-born pianist and songwriter and alumna of the Heidelberger Frühling Liedakademie, has now put together an original and amusing Lied.LAB on animal subjects. Together with her excellent young colleagues, she led a walk through the Ethnological Museum and its current exhibition on animals and animal symbolism. Here, depictions of dragons, phoenixes, sphinxes and other fantastic and real creatures told of how animal forms serve as a projection surface for human needs and characteristics.
The Lied.LAB took place as part of the Heidelberger Frühling Liedfestival 2024.
Ten thousand kilometers
The interdisciplinary Lied.LAB "10.000 Kilometer" was inspired by the exhibition "Dust & Silk" shown at the Völkerkundemuseum Heidelberg, which looks at the Silk Road and the past and present relationship between China and Europe. As a museum walk with instrumental music from East and West, it brought the exhibition's theme to life in an immersive way.
The Lied.LAB was curated by pianist and song designer Toni Ming Geiger. Born in Munich in 1990, the son of a Chinese and a German sinologist, he likes to operate in the intermediate zones of cultures and artistic disciplines.
The Lied.LAB took place as part of the Heidelberger Frühling Liedfestival 2023.
Sleep Cycle of an Insomniac
A Berlin performance of the eight-hour "Sleep" project by composer Max Richter was the source of inspiration for pianist Kunal Lahiry, a fellow of the Heidelberger Frühling Lied Akademie and one of the most creative song designers of his generation. In the staged Lied.Lab "Sleep Cycle of an Insomniac," he traces the parcours of consciousness between fatigue, insomnia, restless dreams and sudden awakenings in songs and works by Johannes Brahms, Hugo Wolf, Jake Heggie, Ivor Gurney, Max Richter and Rebecca Clarke, among others.
The programme is intended as a stimulating exploration of the phases of darkness and the memories, fears and joys that arise in the process. Not only do the boundaries between eras blur - from Brahms to George Crumb to Jake Heggie - but genres, stylistic heights and national languages also play associatively into one another. In addition to Lahiry at the piano, the singers Fanny Soyer (soprano), Hagar Sharvit (mezzo-soprano) and Jeeyoung Lim (bass-baritone), all three Fellows of the Heidelberger Frühling Lied Akademie or the Wettbewerb "Das Lied", will perform during the evening. The direction of Andrea Tortosa Baquero, the lighting design of Emilio Cordero Checa and the set design of Amir Baltic provided the aesthetic interplay of colors, sounds and sensations.
The Lied.LAB took place as part of the Heidelberger Frühling Liedfestival 2022.
DIA_LOG
Just like photos, songs are able to open the window to a distant moment. In the staged Lied.Lab "DIA_LOG", slides are placed in a new context with songs by Mendelssohn, Ives or Wolfgang Rihm. They come from Heidelberg citizens and show the key moments of life: the first day at school, the beginning of great love or the wedding. Music and images merge into a nostalgic evening and let us dive deep into our memories.
The interdisciplinary recital was conceived in 2019 by Marie König and Malte Hemmerich, both Fellows of the Heidelberger Frühling Academy for Music Journalism. Vendula Nováková took over the direction, while soprano Theresa Pilsl and pianist Daniel Gerzenberg, both Fellows of the Heidelberger Frühling Liedfestival, performed DIA_LOG in the fall of 2021 and again in June 2022 as part of the Liedfestival.
Tanz, Lied, Jazz
The texts by Michael Lentz formed the basis of the project, which was developed by the jazz and popular music department and the Academy of Dance at the Mannheim University of Music under the direction of Michael Küttner and Ralf Frey and performed at the 2017 Musikfestival. Voices, percussion and dance were ingredients of an evening where new songs and improvisations met. The project was created in cooperation with the Mannheim State University of Music and Performing Arts and Karlstorbahnhof.