Karlheinz Stockhausen: Michaels Reise

Stockhausen-Stiftung für Musik/Stockhausen-Kurse Kürten, Germany

Already in the 1970s composer Karlheinz Stockhausen dreamed of an educational institution in his home town of Kürten where young musicians could spend three months studying his works and subsequently go on a six-month world tour. In 2015 a new staging of MICHAELs REISE will make this vision a reality. The soloist version of MICHAELs REISE for a trumpeter, 9 players and sound director is a tour version of Act II of the opera DONNERSTAG aus LICHT (Thursday from Light) entitled MICHAELs REISE UM DIE ERDE (Michael’s Journey round the Earth) with trumpet and orchestra. From February 2015 the work supported by the Ernst von Siemens Music Foundation will be rehearsed and staged in several work phases in Kürten. Following this, two performances of the new production are planned as part of the Kürten Stockhausen concerts and courses in June. Furthermore, a subsequent tour is planned. Musical supervision will come care of Stockhausen experts Suzanne Stephens – who performed the premiere of MICHAELs REISE in 1986 – and Kathinka Pasveer – who assisted Karlheinz Stockhausen for decades and who is synonymous with faithful Stockhausen performances. Ten students from five different European countries (Germany, Italy, Great Britain, Switzerland and Turkey) were selected as performers. The aim here is to not only study MICHAELs REISE for performances but also to train a young generation in the specific demands of performance practice and interpretation made by the music of Karlheinz Stockhausen and thereby to build an ever-growing body of Stockhausen performers.

July 11 – 19, 2015
Sülztalhalle Kürten, Germany

Further Information:
www.karlheinzstockhausen.org