Last week I premiered my new solo project Lost In Beethoven at the Beethovenfest Bonn. This represents a new kind of thing for me: Seemingly endless amounts of Beethoven mixed with open aleatoric elements controlled by the audience. From the program:
In this unique concert experience the audience will be wandering through a musical maze build of all Beethovens 32 piano sonatas. They will have to manouver strange musical crossroads and escape blind alleys in search of secret passage ways leading from sonata to sonata. Resulting in one majestic piece of continous music (every note coming directly from the master himself), this musical labyrinth can be enjoyed as a pure concert (just close your eyes and lean back), a musical escape room (if such things did not exsist before they do now) or be observed as the ultimate union between pianist, composer & audience; all taking part in creating an epic, unique and never repeatable journey through Beethovens always evolving musical universe.
The two performances ended up being vastly different, and having the audience so active is just a very satisfying experience. During the performance many people participated, and everyone (young and old) brought their own instincts and style to the stage. Definately somthing I want to do more - its rare to laugh and smile this much during a classical event.