Odd new combo for Beethoven
Luminato boss sees a ‘small gem’ bringing disciplines together for all 32 sonatas in a day
All of the ingredients have been assembled for an event to be remembered.
Toronto pianist Stewart Goodyear worked for months, both at the keyboard as well as the gym, to build stamina for Saturday’s Koerner Hall performance of all of Beethoven’s 32 sonatas in one day.
Indonesian performance artist Melati Suryodarmo practised extensively as well, then rehearsed alongside Goodyear, interpreting the sonatas with gentle, intuitive movements and props, standing most of the time in high heels.
In Germany, artist Jorinde Voigt burned the midnight oil up till the last minute, creating 32 pieces of art that “extract” the essence of the sonatas and now adorn the walls of the Royal Ontario Museum (next door to Koerner) until Dec. 8. Together, these artists are paving the way for the future of Luminato.
Jorn Weisbrodt, artistic director of Luminato, points to this collaboration of artists from different sectors as how he wants the festival to evolve. These three artists have created “a small gem,” Weisbrodt says.
“This is a wonderful journey and eyeopener for the artists. This is the kind of thing I’d like to do on a larger scope.”
This is Luminato’s sixth year. When Weisbrodt came on board last fall, much of the programming had been done. He set out to tweak, trim and put as much of his stamp on events as possible without reinventing the wheel.
Goodyear and Mervon Mehta, executive director of the Royal Conservatory of Music, had already discussed doing all the sonatas in one day. Weisbrodt’s original reaction was, “Wow.”
“This is a wonderful journey and eye-opener for the artists. This is the kind of thing I’d like to do on a larger scope.”
JORN WEISBRODT ARTISTIC DIRECTOR OF LUMINATO
Then he started thinking on a larger scale. Performance artist Marina Abramovic had broken new ground with her 2010 show The Artist is Present at New York’s Museum of Modern Art, where she quietly sat in a chair for all the public hours of the gallery for more than a month.
It was a huge hit, says Weisbrodt, who then sought out Suryodarmo, a student of Abramovic’s, for the Beethoven project.
“Her performance will open up the ideas of what we are hearing.”
During a press preview, she held a hefty piece of wood, a mirror and a metal bar to illustrate natural harmony, reflection and balance. When asked if standing for more than 10 hours was exhausting, she replied, “No, I am trained for it.”
“What you see helps you hear better,” Weisbrodt said. “I’ve always been fascinated with how to turn music into a visual process.”
In a piano concert, it’s hard for the audience to see the performer’s hands. While large sweeping movements are obvious, nimble fingers are not, says Weisbrodt, who solved this problem with an image projected above the stage of Goodyear’s fingers flying over the keys.
Goodyear had the time of his life preparing for the Beethovenaganza, saying, “It feels like a ride, an intense ride.”
He worked out with weights and aerobic exercises, and practised the sonatas hours every day until “I could play them in my sleep.”
The next member of the marathon is Voigt, whose work has been garnering increased attention in the past four years. As she worked on the sonata pieces, she was creating another big show of her own headed for New York.
Voigt had had very little sleep when she was interviewed in her studio in Berlin.
She explained that she uses waterproof, fade-proof ink in her work “that makes these long lines without losing the link.” Her aim with the Beethoven pieces was to show the “emotional path from where he was at 15 to the end.”
Voigt played the piano as a child and was already well acquainted with Beethoven’s sonatas. Her paintings “are not interpretations. They are visual extracts of all the emotional notes in the scores. I’m drawing a mind model,” she said. The art show is free with admission to the ROM, whose Institute for Contemporary Culture is a cosponsor. Mehta says more than half of the ticket buyers for the marathon are seeing all three concerts, which run three or more hours each, beginning at 10 a.m. During the breaks, concert-goers can go next door to the ROM and drink in Voigt’s art. Those thirsty for intellectual stimulation can also attend a free lecture in the concert hall at 7:30 p.m. on Saturday by neuroscientist and neurologist Dr. Antonio Damasio, titled Music and the Brain.
“We’ve ticked off a lot of boxes,” said Weisbrodt with a laugh. He adds that he hopes all this captures the sense of adventure and excitement that greeted Beethoven’s work before we got used to hearing it in shopping malls.
This is where Luminato is headed for the future, he says. “I hope people like it and (will) not say, ‘That was crazy.’ ” See video of Goodyear rehearsing at bit.ly/starstewart