WALDEN by HEINER GOEBBELS – UK premiere

Sat 23 Jun

Heiner Goebbels

Following the success of Birmingham Conservatoire’s Frontiers+ during March 2012, Heiner Goebbels returns for the UK premiere of Walden at mac birmingham, as part of the London 2012 Festival.

The London 2012 Festival is a spectacular 12-week nationwide celebration from 21 June and running until 9 September 2012, bringing together leading artists from across the world with the very best from the UK.

Walden will be performed by Ensemble Klang (Netherlands) and Birmingham Contemporary Music Group. As part of its end-of-year celebrations, the Conservatoire Symphony Orchestra will perform parts of his counterpart piece, Surrogate Cities, the day before the Walden premiere, as part two of their Frontiers+ Heiner Goebbels Festival.

Walden is based on Henry David Thoreau’s account of his retreat to simple living and self-sufficiency, his experiences over two years in a cabin he built near Walden Pond close to Concord, Massachusetts. His experiment was an attempt to ‘live deep and suck out all the marrow of life’.  The UK premiere features the original artists and production team who created this version of Walden in 2006, plus musicians from Birmingham Contemporary Music Group.

Inspired by Goebbels’ work and Thoreau’s writing and ideas, the whole site of mac birmingham will be brought to life during the day, including new music theatre from Birmingham Conservatoire (Breakfast at the Old Suburban Canteen); a special cinema screening of Our Daily Bread; visual work exhibited in the ALLOTMENT gallery spaces; talks and discussions; writing workshops; and a ‘foraging menu’ in the Bridges Café Bar.

Heiner Goebbels is one of the world’s leading and most sought after creative artists.  In addition to an Honorary Doctorate from Birmingham City University, he recently received the prestigious International Ibsen Award, was celebrated with the London premiere of Surrogate Cities at the Festival Hall and as part of the Room for London Artangel installation at Southbank Centre.

Heiner Goebbels’ uncategorisable works embrace the many aspects of his life in music in ways that feel both entirely natural and very personal: leftfield rock and improvisation, radio plays, notated music, cinema, critical musicology and theatre. “I see myself in architectural terms, as an engineer for the imagination – building a space in which the fantasy of the audience can work.” Heiner Goebbels quoted in the Financial Times.

For further details or to book tickets visit www.macarts.co.uk or call Sales & Information on 0121 446 3232.