15 November 2019

13.30 h: Taking Stock 2019: New Musical Theatre of the Present Day
Opening talk: Prof. Dr. Stefan Drees (Musicology, Hanns Eisler School of Music Berlin)

14.30 – 15.30 h: From The Workshop I: A Look at Scores
With Chaya Czernowin, Sara Nemtsov, Daniel Ott, Sidney Corbett

15.45 – 17.00 h: An analysis of the current state of New Musical Theatre
Panel discussion with Chaya Czernowin, Sarah Nemtsov, Daniel Ott, Sidney Corbett
Host: Andreas Göbel, rbb Kultur



16 November 2019

10.30 h: Spotlight on Berlin. World Premieres Since 1945
Lecture: Dr. Bernd Feuchtner (publicist)

11.30 h: From The Workshop II: Voices
Catherine Gayer (soprano), Thomas Blondelle (tenor) and Noa Frenkel (alto) on their experiences in the field of new musical theatre

15.00 h: Forests, Meadows, Motorways: New Spaces for New Musical Theatre
Lecture: Prof. Dr. Christa Brüstle (Musicology, Women and Gender Studies, Institute for Aesthetics of Music, and Head of the Centre for Gender Studies at the University of Music and Performing Arts Graz)

16.00 h: From The Workshop III: Live Composition
Composers Misha Cvijovic, Sebastian Hanusa and Samuel Penderbayne write music live and with the audience



17 November 2019

11 – 12.30 h: Closing discussion: A New Dawn?
With: Lucia Ronchetti, Simon Steen-Andersen, Frank Hilbrich, Julia Lwowski
Moderation: Patrick Hahn

For over 400 years, an art form that combines text, sound, imagery and movement – hearing through seeing, music with theatre – has existed in the form of opera. And since the very beginnings the discussion about the relationship between music and language, later about movement and imagery, has never faded. On the contrary, the possibilities for creation have downright exploded over the past 100 years.

The field now known as "contemporary musical theatre" can no longer be overlooked: the broad variety of New Musical Theatre is not only apparent when comparing the entirely unique musical scripts and compositional techniques. The differences go beyond that. They are cemented in different spatial approaches, from the peep box to room stages to walkable solutions, or in divergent forms of production: is there the traditional sequence of text, composition and staging, or is everything simultaneous, only during rehearsals if possible, without any prior noted materials?

Ultimately it comes down to the fundamental question of what "work" and "authorship" actually mean and entail nowadays. Against this backdrop of immense variety in New Musical Theatre, the question of the audience is always asked once more: how accessible is a new work to a broad audience?

Yet why is contemporary musical theatre relatively unpopular compared to new plays or visual art? And how different is the reception of New Musical Theatre by a young audience: there has been a true boom in recent years.

The Deutsche Oper Berlin was long an important home for New Musical Theatre, and in recent years it has reclaimed this reputation. Every year since 2015 premieres have been held on the big stage, by Georg Friedrich Haas, Andrea Lorenzo Scartazzini, Aribert Reimann and Detlev Glanert. Chaya Czernowin will follow in autumn 2019, with more planned for the future. And the venue Tischlerei has been an exclusive space for contemporary pieces since it opened seven years ago.

Reason enough to dedicate the annual house symposium to finding a space for New Musical Theatre on the occasion of the premiere of Chaya Czernowin's HEART CHAMBER in November 2019.