POPULUS

Peter Jakober

The audience finds itself in the middle of the dystopian circus “Forum Populus,” a dynamic hybrid of circus ring and open forum, with diverse islands on which there is talking, singing, and action. What is spoken is executed, but above all refracted. Here is where the “Is” appears, where they form a “we,” which breaks up again into an “I” – hoping and silent inwardly, screaming outwardly, and demanding changes so as to bring about a transformation, not only of everyday life, in a self-determined way.

The political contents emerge from a compositional restructuring of the world and its discourses that situates living together anew and attempts to express it. The music ranges between sonic alienation by means of multiplication, acousmatic processes, and the overlaying of several seemingly independent and yet interrelated layers of sound and tempo. The work hopes to break up predefined, entrenched ways of communicating as well as acting and gives rise to new perspectives.

Peter Jakober studied composition under Georg Friedrich Haas and Gerd Kühr at the University of Music and Performing Arts Graz. So far his works have been interpreted by the ensemble recherche, the Aleph Guitar Quartet, Klangforum Wien, the Arditti Quartet, Cologne‘s thürmchen ensemble, the Ensemble für Neue Musik Graz and the Graz Orgelpfeifenorchester. There have been collaborations with the choreographer and director Paul Wenninger and the ensemble]h[iatus from France. He received the Andrzej Dobrowolski Composition Scholarship from the province of Styria in 2010, the SKE Publicity Prize, the Scholarship of the Akademie Schloss Solitude 2011/12, and the Erste Bank Composition Prize 2015. After stays abroad in Rotterdam and Cologne Jakober currently lives in Vienna.

Ferdinand Schmatz writes poetry, prose, essays and radio plays. Since 2012 he has been the department chair and head of the Institute of Language Arts at the University of Applied Arts in Vienna. In 2004 he was awarded the Georg Trakl Poetry Prize, in 2006 the H.C. Artmann Prize and in 2009 the Ernst Jandl Prize, to mention just a few. Among his most recent publications are Durchleuchtung. Ein wilder Roman aus Danja und Franz (2007), quellen. Gedichte (2010) and in 2016 aufSÄTZE! Essays zur Poetik, Literatur und Kunst and das gehörte feuer. orphische skizzen (prose, poems).

A production of the University of Music and Performing Arts Graz with ORF musikprotokoll. Winner of the 7th Johann-Joseph-Fux-Opernkompositionswettbewerbs des Landes Steiermark

Music drama by Peter Jakober based on a libretto by Ferdinand Schmatz

Musical direction: Dimitrios Polisoidis (PPCM)
Musical production: PPCM teaching staff from Klangforum Wien
Director: Christoph Zauner
Costumes and scenery: Andrea Meschik, students from the Institut für Bühnengestaltung
Video: Chris Ziegler
Speaker: Christoph Gerhardus
Soprano: Camille Primeau
Alto: Christine Rainer
Tenor: Felix Heuser
Bass: Gao Yichen
Instrumentalists: KUG
Stage technicus Chief: Peter Fischer
Video and Sound Editor (Recording) : Ulrich Gladisch
Sound (Recording / Live-Stream): Alexander Zwierzina
Camera: Jürgen Sukic, Mario Stockinger, Anton Kaufmann
Sound Engineer(Live & Surroundmix): Christian Scheucher