into...

Since 2006, over fifty per cent of the world population has lived in cities - a fact that thrusts the city into the centre of social and scientific interest. And since time immemorial its enticements have prompted people to move - whether in the hope of fulfilling their longings, or in search of economic and social success, or with the wish for personal happiness. Simultaneously the city has undergone constant change. On no one day is it the same as the day before, and yet it retains its substance. But what distinguishes the nature of a city? What determines its specific »essence« over and beyond the familiar associations and connotations, beyond its outward appearance, its geographical location or climatic conditions? ›into...‹ is an artistic attempt to home in on the city and to provide musical answers to such questions.

The music project ›into... – Compositional Approaches to Istanbul, Dubai, Johannesburg and Pearl River Delta‹ by the Ensemble Modern and the Siemens Arts Program, in collaboration with the Goethe-Institute, was the attempt to answer these questions in music. Seventeen outstanding composers joined this project. Between February 2008 and May 2009, they spent a month in one of four megacities - Istanbul, Dubai, Johannesburg, and Pearl River Delta - to compose a work reflecting on it for Ensemble Modern. These seventeen musical »city works«, attempts to cast the essence of a city in music, have been performed from October 2008 onwards in Frankfurt and Berlin as well as in Essen, Istanbul, Dubai, Johannesburg and Hong Kong.

The selected composers who stepped ›into‹ Istanbul, Dubai, Johannesburg and, Pearl River Delta, are: Mark Andre, Beat Furrer, Samir Odeh-Tamimi and Vladimir Tarnopolski (Istanbul), Vykintas Baltakas, Markus Hechtle, Márton Illés and Jörg Widmann (Dubai), Luke Bedford, Jörg Birkenkötter, Lars Petter Hagen and Lucia Ronchetti (Johannesburg), and Unsuk Chin, David Fennessy, Heiner Goebbels, Benedict Mason and Johannes Schöllhorn (Pearl River Delta).