Last year, we released two albums on ON Cologne Records: »Viola d’amore JETZT« by Annegret Mayer-Lindenberg and »Kurzwelle« by Duo Vertige.
We want to celebrate this with a listening session! We invite you to listen to the composition together and bring the two albums into an exchange on a Saturday afternoon. Each listening session will be accompanied by a short talk with the musicians.
SAT February 8
Studio Palmin, Vogteistr. 18a
Free Admission

Listening Session 1: CROSSING
Compositions by composers from different countries who met in Cologne and NRW.
3-5 PM
With:
Farzia Fallah (*1980, Iran)
»ruhig, mit Feuerwerk in den Augen« (2022)
For viola d’amore
Takuya Harashima
(*1993, Japan)
»Lapislazuli, der die Sterne verdeckt. Kristall, der den Regenbogen verdeckt.« (2021)
For harp and percussion
Jesse Broekman (*1985, Netherlands)
»nach der helle« (2022)
Nayoung Yuk (*1988, Korea)
»Einfärbung« (2021)
For harp and percussion
Thierry Tidrow (*1986, Canada)
»Minnelied« (2022)
For viola d’amore
Natsuki Niwa (*1991, Japan)
»Beyond Tinnitus« (2021)
For harp and percussion
Listening Session 2: DIVERSE
Compositions by composers who, in addition to their compositional work, are also active as performers or directors
6-8 PM
With:
Simon Rummel (*1978, Germany)
»Herein« (2017)
Peter Rubel (*1992, Germany)
»Viola d’amore JETZT« (2021)
For harp and percussion
Roman Pfeifer (*1976, Germany)
»I want these people to believe that there is communication« (2017)
For viola d’amore solo
Hotaka Tanigawa (*1993, Japan)
»fine« (2021)
For harp and percussion
Annegret Mayer-Lindenberg (*1978, Germany)
»to let go of the universe« (2022)
For viola d’amore and feed
Dariya Maminova (*1988, Russia)
»gebrochene Zeit« (2021)
For harp and percussion
Both albums will be available as a CD. »Viola d’amore JETZT« will be sold at a special price of 10€ on Saturday!
About Viola d’amore JETZT
Annegret Mayer-Lindenberg became acquainted with the viola d’amore during her training as a violin maker and realised that little contemporary music had been composed for this extraordinary instrument. The special tonal characteristics of the viola d’amore are determined above all by the many resonant strings, the various possible tunings of the instrument and the special construction.
For »Viola d’amore JETZT« she commissioned new works by Simon Rummel, Farzia Fallah, Jesse Broekman, Annegret Mayer-Lindenberg, Roman Pfeifer and Thierry Tidrow.
Annegret Mayer-Lindenberg received her first violin lessons at the age of seven, but soon switched to the viola. After leaving school, she initially trained as a violin maker. She later studied music, majoring in viola, in the Netherlands with Gisella Bergman and Garth Knox.
Annegret is very active in the field of chamber and ensemble music, with a particular interest in contemporary music and collaborations with composers as well as historically informed performance practice. She has been a member of Ensemble Garage (Cologne) since September 2010. She is currently studying composition with Prof Johannes Schöllhorn at the Hochschule für Musik in Freiburg.
About Kurzwelle
Six new works have been created for the unusual combination of harp and percussion. Three composers from Japan and three from the new music scene in North Rhine-Westphalia came together in five intensive rehearsal phases in Cologne and worked on the works in close contact with the musicians.
The resulting compositions by Natsuki Niwa, Dariya Maminova, Takuya Harashima, Peter Rubel, Hotaka Tanikawa and Nayoung Yuk could not be more different – from bright sound combinations of triangle and harp sounds to melodious and minimalist patterns and a dark mixture of low drums and harp echoes.
Duo Vertige was founded in 2011 by harpist Mirjam Schröder and percussionist Rie Watanabe. Since then, the duo has continuously expanded the repertoire for this unusual instrument pairing and has commissioned new works from composers such as Jörg Peter Mittmann, Noriko Kawakami and Elnaz Seyedi.
Rie Watanabe is a Japanese percussionist for contemporary music, improvised music and music theatre. In addition to her own projects (Honda Yuya Archiv, TRAVEL MUSICA and Ensemble DEHIO), she is a freelance musician and regularly collaborates with several renowned contemporary music ensembles such as Ensemble Musikfabrik. It was there that she met Mirjam Schröder. The harpist performed on stage from a young age and still gives solo and chamber music concerts today. Her numerous awards include the audience prize at the ARD International Music Competition in 2004. Mirjam Schröder is a professor of harp at the University of Performing Arts in Vienna.