21:00
The Seaplane Harbour
Venue info + map
Ticket 25/18 €
Creative team: Tatjana Kozlova-Johannes, Helena Tulve, Kärt Tõnisson, Eva Eensaar-Tootsen
Estonian Composers’ Ensemble assembled especially for the occasion of the festival opening: Ülo Krigul, Helena Tulve, Maria Kõrvits, Lauri Jõeleht, Andrus Kallastu, Tatjana Kozlova-Johannes
Musicians: Anna-Liisa Eller, Merje Roomere, Kristin Kuldkepp
Choreographer and stage director: Kärt Tõnisson
Stage director and actor: Eva Eensaar-Tootsen
Lighting designer: Oliver Kulpsoo
Dancers: children at the dance class of St. John’s School (supervisor Kärt Tõnisson)
Tatjana Kozlova-Johannes (b. 1977, Estonia)
“Lagunemise ilu” / “The Beauty of Decay” (2019, premiere)
Autumn … The last leaves, the last rays of sun before a long silence … Whether it be the autumn in nature or one’s life, we are looking back with yearning and nostalgia. We would like to hold on to the past moments that are passing like sand through our fingers.
Autumn can be taken as the metaphor for our time. We are living with the feeling that the world around us is slipping away, transforming and falling into ruins. Whether go with or against the flow of constant change we still perceive that the flow keeps going and we are unable to preserve anything. And yet, there is something very beautiful in this feeling of loss. Just like when seeing a wall with peeling old paint or a deserted farmhouse that arises an unexpected feeling of lightness and liberation – for those whom the wall and the house were once important have been long gone together with their affection, and no one is yearning for the old times. And instead of pain there will be light in this death. It seems that such lack of affection and conciliation with loss enables us to see beauty and holiness in decay.
“The Beauty of Decay” is a musical composition expressing lightness through the integral combination of sound, poetry, movement and light. Music collective mainly consisting of composers has been assembled especially for this production. Various sound objects, namely crystal bowls, wine glasses and construction tools will be used for creating music.
Tatjana Kozlova-Johannes (b. 1977) studied composition at the Tallinn Georg Ots Music School and received an MA in composition from the Estonian Academy of Music and Theatre. She has also studied at the Conservatory of Music Giuseppe Tartini in Trieste, Italy and participated in various composition master classes, including at the International Summer Course for New Music Darmstadt, where she received the Kranichstein Music Prize. Kozlova-Johannes has collaborated with prestigious music ensembles, such as ICTUS Ensemble, Neue Vocalsolisten Stuttgart and Ensemble Phoenix Basel. In Estonia, she has had a long-term collaboration with the ensemble U:, to whom she wrote one of her recent pieces “Corners”. In recent years, various sound objects (or so-called “non-instruments”) play important role in Kozlova-Johannes’s compositions (e.g. “Betweenland”, “Ice Curves”, “Clues”, “Lighting A Fire”, and “Lights”).
www.soundcloud.com/tatjana-kozlova-johannes