“I hate klezmer.” Daniel Grossmann, the conductor and founder of the Jewish Chamber Orchestra Munich, says so in a video clip. To then explain himself in more detail: “I have a problem with the kitschy American variant of East European Jewish folk music! It was originally wild, rough dance music, played at festivals, especially at weddings in the East European Stetl of the 19th century.”
With a composition commission from Moritz Gagern, the ensemble wanted to follow the traces of this music, resulting in a full-length work entitled “Nigunim”, which premiered in March 2017 in the Muffathalle. A kind of composed wedding music, consisting of 23 short, consecutive pieces. The composition can now be heard again on Wednesday, April 26, at the Munich Kammerspiele. “Klezmer re-constructed,” it says. This time with video art and puppetry.
The idea of finding moving images for the animated “Nigunim” music came up before the pandemic between Grossmann and the Munich video artist Christoph Brech. Commissioned by the Goetz Collection, he has now created a film together with the Munich Marionette Theater that, on the one hand, takes up various traditions from the silent film era, but, on the other hand, also makes the production process visible: a Jewish wedding in shadow play scenes is mixed with recordings of musicians unexpected perspectives, the production of the stick puppet figures can be seen as well as the puppeteers who act hidden under the recording screen. A game with time levels and spaces, as does Moritz Gagern, who with “Nigunim” takes a look back into a lost world – and has created something new in the process.
Klezmer re-constructed, orchestral concert with video art, Wed., April 26, 8 p.m., Munich Kammerspiele. Info and tickets below www.muenchner-kammerspiele.de