After more than a year since last time, it was great once more to return to the always fabulous world of music making in complete darkness. With fellow Light Out - members Steven Walter and Magnus Boye Hansen it was a surprising joy to do this again, and great to get confirmation that we are far from done with this concept yet.
Out new program premiered in Waiblingen in beginning of February. There are always a fair amount of nervousness connected to the very first performance of a new program and this was no exception. The lack of security in the form of sheet music, sight or visual communication is especially present when you dont really know if what you are trying to do is really possible. However this turned out the be our perhaps best launch ever, with everything going smoother then any of us had dared hoped for.
It's s always great to return to Waiblingen, one of the very first places we did this concept. The audience shows no sign of loosing interest, despite being served now a total of four show over the years, so I hope we get a chance to return. The location, Kulturhaus Schwanen, is a great space run by great and very accommodating people - without which a concert in complete darkness would never work.
Last week we finished the Norwegian part of the tour. We got lots of attention and especially in Oslo the audience proved to be very interested in the concept.
Every program we do in the dark has a character and profile distinctly different than the proceeding ones. This new program is focusing on the MTC - crowd of American post-minimalist composers, and thus it is quite a tonal and rhythmically concrete experience. To our great surprise however, this proved to be a program sparking quite different reactions from different audience members. While some would find the music meditative and almost to agreeable and beautiful, others would think it far to harsh and hard to listen to. Both camps would convey their experience passionately, with no need for us to draw comments and opinions out of them. The interesting thing in this regard seem to be the classical musicians among the audience would find the program more difficult than others. This is strange, as one would think them more equipped to handle musical challenges than others.
I cant wait until the next shows, playing with fellow LightOuters Magnus and Steven is always great fun, and it is a great luxury to be touring with friends.