Nik Bärtsch's MOBILE: SOUNDING CHURCH CIRCLES

Concerts in sacred buildings have a special appeal: There is a sublime silence in which the music can take up space and gain a greater aura. Nik Bärtsch is one of the important artists who has shaped the Enjoy Jazz Festival for years. His various performances - solo, with Ronin or Mobile - have repeatedly shown how closely music is linked to spiritual experiences. His latest project takes him to the Christuskirche Mannheim, where an acoustic sound ring ritual awaits us: Nik Bärtsch's Mobile: Sounding Church Circles promises a five-hour sound and space experience in which the audience is also part of a "ring". Bärtsch calls the start of the evening "Sounding Dusk-Drift" - the audience can move quietly through the nave (from 7pm to 9.30pm). The actual, "focused" concert begins at 9.30 pm. And between 10.30 p.m. and midnight, the evening concludes with the "Sounding Midnight Drift". In addition to the main stage by the altar, where the protagonists Nik Bärtsch, Nicolas Stocker and Sha will be playing the grand piano, percussion instruments, bass clarinet and saxophone, there will be four other sound stations in the church - organs, kettledrums, tubular bells, tam-tam. "Ecstasy through asceticism" is how Nik Bärtsch once characterized his work. His aim is to penetrate undreamt-of depths through reduction, repetition and repetition - it is about contemplation. In music, as in Zen meditation, it is important to be completely present in the moment, Bärtsch once told Swiss radio. "Repetitive work allows me to be extremely attentive and careful. In this state, you perceive incredible subtleties. Calmness and repetition are a belief in the potential that can develop from the simplest things. By reducing to the essentials, I can let things speak for themselves." The ring, the circular movement that the concert in the Christuskirche performs with the help of the audience, should come very close to this ideal.

The Artist in Residence program at the Enjoy Jazz Festival is supported by NEUSTART KULTUR/BKM and the Initiative Musik.