Grand opening and supporting programme

Kunstmuseum Bonn
Helmut-Kohl-Allee 2
53113 Bonn

Nicola Hein presents his project Tertiary Protensions. It is a real-time solo format for guitar and software-agent, which processes, adapts, and reacts to the artist’s sounds, co-creating the performance. The software-agent not only relates to details, but also to the artist’s whole musical idiom, which makes the performance a platform for open interaction between the artist and the machine. Besides productive musical interactions a core-focus of the performance lies on the machine’s passive features, which Hein calls ‚cybernetic listening‘.

The project is introduced by Kevin Licht. His lecture focusses on the artistic possibilities of human-machine-interaction through a Kantian lens: Can Kant’s categories of originality and imitation be applied on artistic human-machine-interaction? Is the AI-software-agent imitating or simulating the artist’s originality? Is AI an instrument or co-creator in the production of art?

Nicola L. Hein is a sound artist, guitarist, composer, and researcher in music aesthetics and cybernetics. He is a professor of digital creation and artistic director of the studio for electronic music at the University of Music Lübeck. With the support of the Goethe-Institut and many other institutions, his works have been realized in more than 30 countries in North America, South America, Africa, Asia and Europe. His artistic work is documented on over 30 CD, tape, and vinyl publications on international labels such as Clean Feed. He has been awarded many different prizes and grants for his work.

Beethoven-Haus
Kammermusiksaal
Bonngasse 24
53111 Bonn

This evening will feature two world premieres of compositions that deal explicitly with Kant's philosophy. In cooperation with the Studio for Electronic Music at the HfMT Cologne, we will present a work by up-and-coming composer Carlie Schoonees, which will be premiered by the studio's ensemble. In addition, the internationally renowned pianist Amadeus Wiesensee will premiere a work by the philosopher and composer Michael Bastian Weiß, who has already heralded the Kant Year with a musical composition of Kant’s Opus postumum and Lichtenberg’s Sudelbücher.

The evening will be introduced with a lecture by Larissa Berger, who will focus on the relation between music and philosophy from a Kantian perspective. The lecture is followed by an open discussion of the potentials and difficulties that lie in a musical approach to Kantian philosophy. How can Kant's philosophy be approached in terms of compositional practice? What impulses does Kant provide for contemporary music?

Carlie Schoonees studies composition at the HfMT Cologne and has already presented works at the Acht Brücken Festival in Cologne and worked with the renowned Ensemble Musikfabrik..

Amadeus Wiesensee has won numerous national and international prizes as a pianist. In 2021, he was awarded the Bavarian State Ministry of Science and the Arts' Arts Promotion Prize in the music category. In 2015, he also completed a degree in philosophy at the Munich School of Philosophy and is a regular guest speaker and pianist at the University of Heidelberg as part of the Heidelberg Lectures on Cultural Theory.

Michael Bastian Weiß is Private Lecturer in philosophy at the LMU Munich and a lecturer in poetics and aesthetics at the University of Music and Performing Arts Munich. He composes works for orchestra, chamber ensembles and music theater and has received commissions from the Ernst von Siemens Music Foundation and the Foundation les muséiques Basel, among others.

Beethoven-Haus
Kammermusiksaal
Bonngasse 24
53111 Bonn

Ludwig van Beethoven was a contemporary of the great intellectual and social upheavals of the late 18th century. In his youth, he witnessed the rise of Immanuel Kant’s critical philosophy, which shaped his self-perception no less than Schiller's aesthetics or Goethe's poetry. How this idealistic contemporaneity is reflected in his music can be traced throughout his life and work with remarkable consistency, but also through significant changes.

Hans-Joachim Hinrichsen's lecture will attempt to shed light on such influences and imprints and demonstrate them musically - in particular by means of Beethoven's Piano Sonata pathétique, op. 13, which will be performed by Andrea Wiesli.

Andrea Wiesli is a pianist and musicologist. She studied with Yukio Oya (Munich), Galina Vracheva and Konstantin Scherbakov at the Zurich University of Music. She received further inspiration from master classes with Rudolf Buchbinder, Paul Badura-Skoda, Robert Levin and Christian Favre.

Beethoven-Haus
Kammermusiksaal
Bonngasse 24
53111 Bonn

Paul Natorp, together with Hermann Cohen the founder of Marburg Neo-Kantianism, died on August 17, 1924. It is little known that Paul Natorp was also active as a composer. In cooperation with the Beethoven-Haus Bonn, a memorial concert with works by Paul Natorp and Johannes Brahms will be held to mark the 100th anniversary of Paul Natorp's death. Prof. Jürgen Stolzenberg will introduce Natorp's musical oeuvre and report on two unknown letters by Natorp and Brahms. Afterwards, Paul Natorp's great-great-grandson, the cellist Noé Natorp, and the pianist Jean-Baptiste Doulcet will perform Paul Natorp's Sonata for Cello and Piano (1917) and the Cello Sonata in E minor, op. 38 by Johannes Brahms.

Noé Natorp is a solo cellist of the Orchestre des Pays de Savoie and has been invited to perform numerous solo concerts with renowned orchestras (including the Berlin Philharmonic and the Orchestre National de Bordeaux). With the Trio Fauré, Natorp won the first prize in the international Giorgio Cambissa competition; as a duo with Jean-Baptiste Doulcet, he won the second prize in the chamber music competition of the Fédération Nationale des Associations de Parents d'Élèves de Conservatoires et écoles de musique, de danse et de théâtre.

Jean-Baptiste Doulcet is an internationally active pianist and winner of numerous prizes (4th prize of the Long-Thibaud Competition, 2nd prize of the 8th Piano Nordic Competition, Modern Times Prize Clara Haskil Competition). He has also composed over 20 works for solo music, chamber music and larger ensembles.

Kreuzkirche, Krypta
An der Evangelischen Kirche
53113 Bonn

2024 is not only the 300th anniversary of Immanuel Kant's birthday, but also the 200th anniversary of Ludwig van Beethoven's ninth symphony. Together with the Beethovenfest Bonn, which is also celebrating the Grundgesetz (Basic Law of the Federal Republic of Germany) this year in a „Music Festival of Democracy“, we are inviting you to a panel discussion on the contemporaneity of both figures.

Several academics and an artist will discuss to what extent Kant's radical new thinking influenced Beethoven: on his world view and - above all - on his music. How did Beethoven recei-ve the topics of his time and make them his own? Is it possible to recognize the idea of freedom as moral self-determination - one of the central foundations of Kant's thinking - in Beethoven's works, as "music for a new age" (Hinrichsen)? Despite their integration into the prevailing feudal system, both Kant's philosophy and Beethoven's music focused on the autonomy and dignity of the individual. Did this also lay the foundations for the development of modern democracy?

Christoph Horn (Philosophy Department, University of Bonn)
Tim Kunze (Ostpreußisches Landesmuseum Lüneburg)
Julia Ronge (Beethoven-Haus Bonn)
Amadeus Wiesensee (Pianist)
Moderation: Hans-Joachim Hinrichsen (Musikwissenschaftliches Institut, University of Zürich)