Adventures in space and sound

Every year in May or June, the festival KunstFestSpiele Herrenhausen hosts a varied spectrum of events, including concerts, music-theatre, performances and installations. The climax and finale of this year’s festival was the concert “Surrogate Cities”, a musical portrait of a city by Heiner Goebbels. It was held in an unusual venue: For one evening, a 3900 m²-large hall at the Volkswagen works in the Stöcken district of Hanover – normally a van production plant – became a concert hall.

The Herrenhäuser Gardens in Hanover first became a green theatre in June 2010.

The motto for the festival, using the orangery and gallery as main stages, was “Die Macht des Spiels” - “The power of the game”. In 2016, pianist and conductor Ingo Metzmacher took over as director, and ushered in a new era for the KunstFestSpiele. A native Hanoverian, he is especially interested in music of the 20th and 21st centuries, and keen to bring new and unfamiliar sounds to the public. Above all, he has introduced a more open approach to the festival’s content and location. For one, he wanted to create a contrast with the baroque surroundings of the Herrenhäuser Gardens. To this end, the festival uses additional venues each year, beyond the park grounds, and shows new formats to attract different sectors of the public. So far the concept has been well received and drawn high attendances to the KunstFestSpiele.

This year’s eighth edition featured 18 productions and concerts shown at 50 events from 5 to 21 May. And some of them were at new venues again: The Volkswagen van production plant, the high-rise Capitol building and the Pavillon arts centre on Raschplatz.     

A city within the city

Finding unusual sites for productions that have enough space to accommodate audiences is no mean feat. It was Mayor of Hanover Stefan Schostok who suggested asking Volkswagen if they would be interested in cooperating with KunstFestSpiele Herrenhausen. A meeting was duly arranged and the concept put to those in charge of the van plant in the Stöcken district of Hanover. As works meetings are regularly held here, attended by up to 5000 members of staff, it seemed a feasible venue for the festival.

Still, organizing a concert in the van plant called for special logistical arrangements. As Volkswagen did not want the production process interrupted, the concert had to be carefully fitted in to the plant’s schedule. Temporary conversion of the premises began at 10 pm on Friday evening, the dress rehearsal was held on Sunday morning, and the concert started at 6 pm the same day. The set was dismantled immediately after the concert as production was due to begin again at 6 am on Monday morning.

It was certainly an apt setting for Heiner Goebbel’s “Surrogate Cities”. This piece, premiered in 1994 and since shown all over the world, is a panorama of cities and their unique sound, architecture, and the people who live in them. And the VW plant, employing 15,000, is like a little city within the city itself.

The audience sat at ground level. The 1400 seats consisted of the plain benches used for the works meetings. The 80-person orchestra was positioned on a five-level platform, with a ramp height of 1m. This set the visual focus in the hall.

The sound of an industrial hall

For the “Surrogate Cities” project, the Modern ensemble, musicians of the youth branch of the German Philharmonic and scholarship students and graduates of the International Ensemble Modern Akademie were hired to make up the Ensemble Modern Orchestra. Vocalist David Moss and jazz singer Jocelyn B. Smith lent their voices to the narrative parts of the composition.

Besides the tight schedule for converting the production plant into a concert hall, the biggest challenge of the evening was the sound. During the concert, the individual instruments or instrumental groups had to be spotlighted and re-embedded in the collective sound of the orchestra. This aimed to create an intimate atmosphere at the same time as sounding like a symphony concert. The outcome was standing ovations for the artistic team and the orchestra. The “concert in a production plant” experiment was a resounding success and a perfect finale for the KunstFestSpiele Herrenhausen.