Concert Nightmare

on programme

This performance doesn't have any called terms at the moment.

premiere

17. December 2016, SNG Nova Gorica

about text

Are you sure that classical music is not also modern? Or that serious music can’t be fun? That a symphony orchestra is a collection of bores who nurse their instruments and are incapable of smiling? Or are you a honed music gourmand who perceives going to a concert as the pinnacle of pleasure, an explosion of colourful sounds and a complex experience that cannot be put into words? Somewhere in between, perhaps? In any case – you might be surprised. Perhaps you know that composer John Cages’s greatest hit is called (and lasts) 4:33, but it means four minutes and thirty-three seconds of – silence? That the founder of symphonic music Joseph Haydn tunes the violins during the composition itself? Or that our conductor enriched Edward Grieg with soloists on coughing?

With a similar programme (Johann Strauss: Sport polka ...) we’ll try to prove what we’ve been so insistently repeating: that classical/serious music can also be very humorous. (Literally: we’ll also perform Antonín Dvořák'sHumouresque!) In cooperation with our guest/host Peter Harl, and enriched with stage interventions we’re looking into a relaxing and witty musical event.

In 2015, SNG Nova Gorica started working with NOVA Music Association, when the performance Become a Street Lamp (Srečko Kosovel)was accompanied by the NOVA Big Band at the awards ceremony for the Primorska region theatre award Tantadruj. An extremely positive experience led us to planning a joint comical concert with the Nova Philharmonic symphony orchestra that consists of students from music schools and academies, as well as professional musicians, who’ve come together in the desire for a different view into the future mission of music and the popularisation of classical music.

View complete schedule for the show