This concert series celebrates the power of imagination: our fantasy transforms what we see in the real world into a universe that is entirely our own, coloured by who we are. What is real? What is illusion? What is imagination? What is reality?

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Musically, the three works each explore our sense of reality in their own way: Joan Tower uses the strength of wildly branching sequoias as a metaphor for the sound bath from which she distils her own voice. Camille Pépin takes a Chinese fairy tale as a mirror for our reality. And in Petrushka, Stravinsky plays with roles, personas, and layered realities – until no one knows what was the fairy tale and what was the real world.

The visual dimension enhances this sense of estrangement – and invites the audience to imagine a personal parallel universe. The new works by artist Ellen Vrijsen, inspired by the music, activate the viewer’s imagination. Motion designer Ychaï Gassenbauer takes it a step further, stretching the boundaries between what is imagined and what is real: images overlap, shift, fade, and flow into one another. What is reality? What is imagined? A parallel universe in which music and image converse.

Beyond the Score

Beyond The Score is creation, encounter, and cross-pollination with the wider arts field. More voices. More impulses. And above all: music. More than music. [read more]