Main photo: Room of Silence: A light pendulum by AustrianAmerican artist Erwin Redl turned the hall of the Montforthaus into a Room of Silence. Photo: © Lisa Mathis
EVENT OF THE MONTH
Montforter Zwischentöne:
Exploring the dialogue of classical music and everyday experiences The Montforter Zwischentöne is a new festival concept that takes place in the Austrian town of Feldkirch. It brings an innovative form of performance, art and music merged with everyday issues to the stage. As Confucius famously said: “Roads were made for journeys not destinations.” The Montforter Zwischentöne embrace this through staying in constant contact with their audience and reinventing what art is actually about. TEXT: MARILENA STRACKE
The new Montforthaus, a culture and congress centre in Feldkirch, opened its doors for the first time in January 2015. Right from the start the organisers wanted to move away from being a ‘holy temple’ for highbrow culture, but aimed to open it widely towards an artistic everyday experience of the individual. Already a month later, the Montforter Zwischentöne, a new festival concept with events during three weekends a year, started its mission in that wonderful new location. 26 | Issue 56 | November 2017
“The Montforter Zwischentöne is a festival concept that allows music and dialogue to meet and merge. We combine classical music with the everyday experience and develop formats to communicate the big power that lies within this music in a touching and low-threshold way,” managing director Edgar Eller explains. “In order to achieve that, we do an evening of Bach together with new research findings regarding aging, for example. Or we put a cello player on stage,
who musically accompanies the reports of three death researchers. We want the spark to jump from the stage to the audience and that every visitor goes home feeling enriched.” The German word ‘Zwischentöne’ can be translated to ‘nuances’, ‘shades’ or ‘overtones’. It highlights perfectly what the festival aims to present. It puts matters that are not blindingly obvious, which need to be looked at from all angles because they simply are not black and white, into the limelight. This month, there are a range of exciting events lined up as Eller tells us: “A particularly emotional moment will be the dialogue between the viols ensemble and the experts for ‘finishing it or leaving it be’. The event is titled ‘I have fought the