Esther Schipper congratulates Ari Benjamin Meyers, who was named Artist in Residence at the Beethoven Orchestra in Bonn.

As part of the newly formed cooperation between the Beethoven Orchestra Bonn (BOB) and the Bundeskunsthalle (Art and Exhibition Hall of the Federal Republic of Germany), Ari Benjamin Meyers has been named Artist in Residence for the next two years. "We are very happy that several joint interdisciplinary projects with the BOB can be planned, beginning next spring. Our wishes and hopes are to learn together from one another, to be able to unexpectedly develop something different, as well as to invite or even integrate a wide audience and arouse new interest," says Dr Eva Kraus, director of the Bundeskunsthalle.

The residency's working title is "The Orchestra of the Future." Together with the orchestra members, Meyers will investigate the conditions of music-making, communication with the audience and the place of a symphony orchestra in the society of the 21st century.

Meyers' exhibitions, compositions and projects have been presented worldwide, including at the Paris Opera, the Salzburg Festival, the Spring Workshop Hong Kong and the Lyon Biennale. In Germany, he has worked with diverse musical ensembles ranging from the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra to Einstürzende Neubauten, as well as at institutions such as Volksbühne Berlin, Hamburger Bahnhof Museum, and OGR Turin. In recent years, his works have often taken place in public spaces. Most recently, he’s developed works for the art triennial Beaufort21 in Belgium, MAAT in Lisbon, and a large-scale city-wide project with The Curtis Institute of Music, Drexel University, and The Pew Center for Arts & Heritage in Philadelphia.

Further information on the Residency

Ari Benjamin Meyers
The Long Parade
Beaufort 21
Various locations, Flanders
Through October 17, 2021
www.beaufort21.be

Final Date: October 17: Knokke - Koninklijke Harmonie Sint-Cecilia Heist

The Long Parade by Ari Benjamin Meyers in collaboration with the marching band "Die Verdammte Spielerei," will have its final performance on October 17th, as part of the seventh edition of the Beaufort Triennial, Beaufort 21.

The Long Parade is a musical durational performance inspired by the brutal history of the Belgian coast, memory and forgetting, and the children’s game "Telephone". Over the course of the summer, the Flemish fanfare band "Die Verdammte Spielerei" marched from the French-Belgian border in De Panne to the Belgian-Dutch border of Knokke, performing a new composition by Ari Benjamin Meyers over ten musical parades. For each performance, they were joined by a different local group of musicians that made their own adaptations of the piece and, in a ritualized manner, passed the music — and a specially commissioned flag — from one municipality to the next. This performance, in essence an evolving, moving rehearsal, continued throughout the summer months, undergoing further mutations. The last performance, and thus its finale, will take place in Knokke-Heist on October 17th.

With The Long Parade, Meyers unites the identities and histories of the Belgian coastal municipalities in one new composition that, in getting adapted by all, celebrates collaboration and recognizes the individuality of each place, while at the same time highlighting the fog of memory as it pertains to the past – both recent and more distant.

Participation is free and open to the public.

On October 5th, MAAT celebrated its fifth anniversary. On occasion of this celebration, Ari Benjamin Meyers presented a special iteration of K Club: Reconstructing the Club with two Lisbon-based DJs, Violet and DJ Tennis. The presentation was part of a day-long program of special events, an outdoor market in the gardens of the Tejo Power Station, and free entrance to both buildings, MAAT and Central, where visitors included the President of Portugal, Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa.