Starting on 27 March, Nico and the Navigators will present the music video series “PRESENT” – a series of musical-scenic miniatures that express different aspects of the current situation – weekly on Saturdays on the radialsystem website. At the end of February, six people were invited to talk about their specific experiences during the pandemic and to choose a piece of music – from pop to classical. The invited guests are existentially affected by the virus and the pandemic in different ways and represent many people in our society. A spontaneous arrangement was dedicated to their wish within one day.
The musical and scenic cast for the individual video clips varies: From the Kuss Quartett to pianist Matan Porat, violinist Elfa Rún Kristinsdóttir, drummer Philipp Kullen, guitarist Tobias Weber, singers Nikolay Borchev and Ted Schmitz to dancers Yui Kawaguchi, Ruben Reniers and Florian Graul as well as actors Annedore Kleist, Patric Schott and guest guitarist Jonathan Stockhammer. A questionnaire served as preparation. Nico and the Navigators developed six music videos in the radialsystem from the respective piece of music, which was put into relation with the answers from the questionnaire, as a present not only for those directly affected…
Nico and the Navigators were founded in 1998 by Nicola Hümpel and Oliver Proske at the Bauhaus Dessau. As artists in residence, the ensemble developed the cycle “Menschenbilder” at the Sophiensæle in Berlin – a series of successful productions that received international attention with its strong visual language.
Since 2006, they have been active in the world of opera and music theatre with projects revolving around Schubert, Handel, Bach, Rossini, Mahler and contemporary music. The ensemble tours worldwide, appearing on first-class stages and at renowned festivals. In 2011, Nico and the Navigators were awarded the George Tabori Prize as an outstanding independent ensemble, and in 2016 Nicola Hümpel received the Konrad Wolf Prize from the Akademie der Künste. In autumn 2019, the ensemble brought out its first augmented reality project “Verrat der Bilder” (Betrayal of Images), which was received with astonishment by experts and was shown in the Dessau Masters’ Houses and the Ernst Kolbe Museum.
PRESENT: An Art project by Nico and the Navigators
27.3.2021 | 20:00 CET / Online via radialsystem
The videos are published over a period of 6 weeks. Each saturday, an additional video will be released.
radialsystem.de | Event @ Facebook
A production of Nico and the Navigators supported by the Berlin Senate Department for Culture and Europe. In cooperation with radialsystem.
Picture by Falk Wenzel.
