Reviews

30 May – 2 June 2019, Scenatet presented the playful participatory, interactive piece from 1961 Symphony for 20 Rooms by the renowned Fluxus artist and composer, South Korean Nam June Paik (1932–2006). The performance took place as a living installatory exhibition at Den Frie Udstillingsbygning in Copenhagen. The exhibition was open 5 hours a day, and the audience was invited to experience the piece at their own pace. The Danish newspaper Politiken gave the piece a 5-heart review full of praise:

“Det er en udsøgt fornøjelse at defilere rundt i ‘Symphony for 20 Rooms’. Rum til fordybelse og medskabelse“. (“It is an exquisite pleasure to wander around in ‘Symphony for 20 Rooms’. A space for contemplation and co-creation.”) (Henrik Friis, Politiken, 02.06.19)

Photo: Nanna Navntoft

Christian Winther Christensen’s album ‘Almost in G’ was released at the renowned Austrian record label con legno on 15 February. The album contains 7 pieces performed by Scenatet, and the reviews are great:

“Almost in G is clearly a major contribution to 21st century classical music.(…) There is an urgent originality at work here that absolutely sparkles next to less daring new classical recordings. Comparisons aside, it is a thrilling hour of compositions expertly performed by the SCENATET Ensemble for Art & Music.” (baddpress.blog)

“A very interesting revelation.” (toneshift.net)

And the Danish newspaper Politiken also gives the album a 5-heart review and positive words:

“Det er fysisk nærværende og overraskende let at høre Christian Winther Christensens originale hverdagsmusik.” (24.04.19, Henrik Friis, Politiken)

Between 6 – 8 June, SCENATET presented Salvatore Sciarrino‘s compelling masterpiece Aspern Suite at four performances at the Copenhagen festival KLANG, and already after the first performance and premiere on 6 June, the Danish newspaper Politiken featured a review full of amazement:

“KLANG Festival ended with an insanely beautiful combination of desperate bel canto in slowmotion and delicate, transparent sounds.” (Politiken, 08.06.18)

The online music magazine Seismograf also took place in the excited audience, and reviewed the staged performance, among others saying:

“SCENATETt’s lighting, video art and misty, watery darkness linked arms with the quietly melodramatic atmosphere on which Aspern’s events gain import and implication, and through which we might begin to imagine what they mean.” (Seismograf, 12.06.18)

Read the whole of Politiken’s review here (in Danish, for subscribers), and Seismograf’s review here.

The performance was documented by KLANG Festival and photographer Alexander Banck-Petersen, and to see a selection of images, visit the FACTS AND PHOTOS page here.

Photo: KLANG / Alexander Banck-Petersen

With a great interest from both the audience of Jutland and a large number of Danish as well as international music journalists and editors, SCENATET took the stage at the SPOR festival in Aarhus with Niels Rønsholdt‘s appraised opera experiment, Gaze for Gaze. Together with a new choir and new performers from Denmark and abroad, SCENATET led the curious and anticipatory audience into Rønsholdt’s love-blown darkness with great conviction and musical integrity.

Among others, the theatre blog ISCENE and the music magazine Seismograf were part of the enthusiastic circle of the audience, really encaptured by the contrasts, the contradictory feelings, and the audience’s role in the plot.

“It was unpleasant and strenuous for the eyes to change from dark to light, and it was nerve-racking with the firecrackers banging right behind us. The senses were at stake and in the utmost preparedness. Just like in the first act, where you constantly waited with much tension for a hand on your shoulder. It was surely not pleasant all the way through, maybe quite as it feels to be in the complicated love relationship the opera was about? (ISCENE, 16.05.18)”

Read the whole of ISCENE’s reportage from Gaze for Gaze here, and Seismograf’s review here.

Photo: Maia Meier Duus

On March 14th SCENATET and the American avantgarde ensemble, Ensemble Pamplemousse, played a common concert at Nikolaj Kunsthal in Copenhagen as part of CPH:DOX‘s audio-visual concert programme – performing both pieces by members of Ensemble Pamplemousse, composer Christian Winther Christensen and sound artist Cathy van Eck. Ahead of the concert, promises of a playfulness and exploration of new musical spheres were made, and according to the magazine Seismograf who were among the audience, SCENATET and Ensemble Pamplemousse fully lived up to this.

In their concert review, among other things, Seismograf writes:

“SCENATET invited the closely related Ensemble Pamplemousse for a concert in Copenhagen, and the result became a close study of stylized fun and rampant playfulness as well as a short introduction to the verbal universe of the American president […] A refreshing and confrontational concert, you would wish there were more of”.

Read the full review (in Danish) right here.