Miyagi Haikus by Sandeep Bhagwati

Composition by Sandeep Bhagwati in the Berliner Haus der Kulturen der Welt

Synopsis

The Miyagi Haikus are a score of seventeen musical haikus — brief melodic and rhythmic snapshots — that Sandeep Bhagwati wrote in one day in 2011 as a reaction to the earthquake, tsunami and nuclear reactor disaster in Fukushima. At HKW, the open score becomes the contact zone for seventeen musicians of various stylistic origins, who take on the score in public rehearsals and two concerts between composition and improvisation and transfer it to their own music tradition for their own instrument. At the final concert, poetic reactions by Christian Filips, Yang Lian, and Yoko Tawada translate this “comprovisation” back into lyrical form.

A trio from the New York jazz scene, with Peter Evans (trumpets), Dave Taylor (bass trombone), and Felix Del Tredici (bass trombone); the Open Music Quartet from Stuttgart, with Felix Borel (violin), Scott Roller (cello), Jürgen Kruse (piano), and Michael Kiedaisch (percussion); and a trio comprising a traditional musician from Korea, Jieun Kang (haegeum), a vocal artist from the musique actuelle scene of Montréal, Gabriel Dharmoo (vocals), and the Berlin-based bass maven Matthias Bauer (double bass); and the trans-traditional Ensemble Extrakte Berlin, with Wu Wei (sheng, erhu), Cathy Milliken (oboe), Ravi Srinivasan (tabla, percussion), Sören Birke (duduk, blues harmonica), and Klaus Janek (double bass)

Readings by Yoko Tawada, Yang Lian, and Christian Filips

Produced, composed and conducted by Sandeep Bhagwati (composer-researcher and director of matralab)

Cast & Crew

Director

Uli Aumüller
Director of photography

Hanne Kaisik
Editor (Cut)

Sebastian Rausch

Film Info

Video VoD / live

Production Company

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