01/12/2024, 11:00 am,

People, marimba, music. The musical debut of Peter Nagy

, Kunsthalle Münster

Percussive sounds meet contemporary visual art when the new director of the Westfälische Musikschule, Peter Nagy, invites you to his musical debut at the Kunsthalle Münster. The 40-year-old percussionist was inspired by the current exhibition by Colombian artist nicolás paris entitled Manigua, which means deep forest. Together with musical guests, including pupils and students, Peter Nagy interprets standard works of the classical concert literature for percussion and marimba. The themes of nature, relationship and dialogue are taken up by the exhibiting artist and placed at the centre of the contemplation. The expansive installation becomes a stage. paris sees the exhibition as a classroom, a place for the exchange of knowledge, where the positions of teacher and student are fluid.

The choice of instruments, including three electrically amplified wooden tables, and their arrangement in the space, which allows a special closeness to the musicians, creates a unique concert experience that blends homogeneously into the exhibition. The warm sound of the marimba, commonly known as the 'grand piano' of classical percussion, but also rhythmic howling gongs, drum rolls and bongo patterns make the Kunsthalle Münster resonate and vibrate.

Ghanaia, a homage to the African country by composer Matthias Schmitt (born 1958), opens the concert with marimba and percussion. Hombre d'Aout, a duet for marimba and violin by French composer Eric Sammut (born 1968), continues in a jazzy, impressionistic vein. The piece Trio per Uno is archaic, in which the Serbian composer Nebojša Jovan Živković (born 1962) arranges three players around a bass drum expanded with bongos and Chinese opera gongs, and prescribes an energetic percussion choreography. Finally, the Belgian composer Thierry de Mey (born 1956) sets choreographic accents with a standard work for percussion ensemble: Musique de Table. This table music for three percussionists blurs the boundaries between sound and movement. The concert culminates in a musical outcry. In 1983, the Japanese composer Minoru Miki (1930-2011) wrote Marimba Spiritual for soloist and three percussionists in protest at the great famine in Ethiopia, in which nearly one million people died.

The 60-minute concert will be followed by a get-together. The event is open to the public and free of charge. Seating is limited due to the exhibition space. Donations are welcome.