Diamanda Galás | Broken Gargoyles

Program:

6 - 7:30 p.m.: Free admission to the exhibitions of the Kestner Gesellschaft.

7:30 p.m.: Lecture on Diamanda Galás by the literary and cultural scholar Dr. Julia Meier at the Kestner Gesellschaft.

Please register for the lecture at: kestner@kestnergesellschaft.de or Tel. 0511-70 1200.

9 p.m.: Start of the sound installation in the Nikolaikapelle, the special place on the Goseriedeplatz in front of the Kestner Gesellschaft.

9:45 p.m.: The 25-minute sound installation will be repeated.

Cool drinks are available at the bar.

"Broken Gargoyles" is a sound installation by the American singer, composer, and pianist Diamanda Galás, which she composed in 2020 during the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic. She worked with the artist and sound designer Daniel Neumann, both remaining in isolation in separate places due to the pandemic—Galás in San Diego and Neumann in New York.

Based on two poems from 1911 by the German poet Georg Heym, "Das Fieberspital" and "Die Dämonen der Stadt", the work consists of natural and heavily processed voices, manipulated piano, and various other sound sources. In addition, parts of Galás’s 2020 album De-Formation: Piano Variations, A Work for Solo Piano were added, as well as excerpts from verses from "Das Fieberspital" performed by the artist Robert Knoke.

Now the sound installation "Broken Gargoyles" is being presented in the ruins of the Nikolaikapelle, built around 1250 in Hanover, which was located outside the city wall at the time and served as a quarantine for those who suffered from the plague and leprosy in the Middle Ages.

Diamanda Galás (born in San Diego, USA) is an exceptional phenomenon in the international music and performance scene. The "Callas of avant-garde music" rose to fame with her cycle of works "Plague Mass", which is dedicated to the victims of the AIDS epidemic. It was first performed in 1990 at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine in New York. Other politically charged works include "Vena Cava", "Schrei 27", "De-Formation" as well as "Defixiones, Will and Testament". Diamanda Galás' work operates at the intersection of performance, scream opera, blues, jazz and rebetiko. Her medium is her voice which covers four and a half octaves, the use of electronics and virtuosic piano playing. She has worked on soundtracks with directors such as Oliver Stone, Clive Barker and Francis Ford Coppola. She was artist in residence at the legendary The Kitchen, New York and at the DAAD in Berlin. Her numerous compositions have previously been released by the label Mute Records and now by her own production company Intravenal Sound Operations.

Diamanda Galás will not be present due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Curator: Robert Knoke