Let there be LIGHT

I spent a fascinating moment behind the light-mixers and the VJs of the moers festival. Much more goes on here than I ever dreamed of imagining. The light-scene is just simply its own entire world in the cosmos of  all things do to with the concert.
The moers festival stage is lit by three different types of light. On the one side, there are the spotlights with light-bulbs infront of which there is a foil. Generally, this light source is one colour and when more than one foil can be chosen, the colour change will take some time. On the other side, there is the LED lighting. These can change colour very quickly, however the colours are slightly patchy, but they use 75% less energy - which is much to the delight of the green moers festival. This technology was used for the first time this year and was met with a positive response.
As a third light source, spot-lights armed with light bulbs, over which a prism has been imposed, are used, and a filter added which causes moving shapes and figures.
These three types of spot-light options are controlled by the light technician at the mixing table with a computer connected to it. The computer allows for pre-settings to be made, and thus for a terrifically speedy show, as we have experienced, for example, at the LA-33 performance.
In the festival tent, a fog machine causes the air to make all the spot-lights visible and the colour gradients noticeable. Thanks to the fog, the entire stage becomes immersed in colour.
Without fog, the lights need to be projected onto surfaces, and the resulting reflections as well as the illuminated surfaces would in this case provide the atmosphere.
A VJ has his own functions and possibilities, apart from those of the light technician, however, they do work together. The moers festival DJ Bruno Tait, whose real name is Kjell Rijntjes, spoke to me about his job in the lighting command center:



The light technician and the VJ presented some examples of light ambiance during a sound-check of the Golden Palominos. The festival photographer, Oliver Heisch, captured these for us:

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Abstract musicians

The finnish artist, Sinikka Airaksinen-Rade, draws musicians and their instruments, behind the scenes and during concerts.

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She made available to us some of her work that was created in front of the stage in Moers:

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Information about the artist can be found at www.sinikka-airaksinen.de



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Photos on stage

Our festival-photographer Oliver Heisch captured all the concerts with his camera. Here do you get some nice examples of his work:

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Monolithic

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Melvin Gibbs (Encryption)

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Ornette Coleman

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Ornette Coleman behind the stage

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The Ambush Party

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Jon Irabagon Trio

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Igmar Thomas

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Nils Petter Molvaer
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Bildung trifft auf Schule trifft auf Jazz

Der Schülerreporter Leo Schmidtke vom Medienprojekt Tomorrow is the question befragte die Bildungsministerin Sylvia Löhrmann nach der offiziellen Pressekonferenz des moers festival zu ihrer Beziehung zu der Veranstaltung:

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Young journalists were active at the moers festival

Marina Konrad and Nico Peters, two pupils from the education-project nimm! took a walk around the festival ground before the tent opened his "doors" and captured their impression on videotape:



You will find more articles and information from youngster journalists on their Tomorrow is the Question!-Blog.
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That's it! Good bye 40th edition.

Thank you, the audience! Bambi is holding a speech for all those who made the moers festival 2011 a success:

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For all of you who do not understand "bambiish" is the following collage of audience-feedback to the Ornette Coleman-Quartett:


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World premiere: Chris Dave & Friends

Chris Dave had a last minute arrival on the festival grounds. Directly after the concert, he spoke to Pino Palladino and Kebbi Williams about the premiere of their project and its resulting improvisations:



Pino Palladino and Chris Dave allow for some tensions to erupt during their collaborations: Palladino's straight style of playing, with self-repeating patterns competes with the opposing and fickle drums of Chris Dave.
Pino's commentary:

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The Orchestra without Notes

Two pupils, Fabienne Krüger und Fatih Kaba, got involved with the Klangorchester 2011 and wrote the following article:

What sounds like aliens having a party is, in fact, the Klangorchester 2011 in the Moers Music School. On the 10th of June, pupils from grades 5 and 6, as well as their instructors, among others Georg Wissel, had the opportunity to impress the audience before the main programme in the main tent.

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With everyday items such as cardboard, plastic cups and tubes, the pupils created new instruments. During the performance of the piece ''Alienator'', one of the pupils, Kimberly, prompted the audience to close their eyes and imagine their own fantasy story, as this piece was about communication between humans and aliens.
The project-week, which took place from the 7th until the 10th of June, had the title ''sound experiments'', and it culminated in a one-hour final concert. Here, pupils could express their newly learnt musical skills. The result was an unusual kind of music to the normal ear. The proof, that music does not always have to consist of equal verses and a repeating refrain. For them, it was more often about the regular alternation of soft and loud tones.
The audience was very impressed and applauded enthusiastically, which quickly drove out the initial niggling nervousness of the participants. In closing, the professional musicians played a piece to thank the kids. But this time with normal, acoustic instruments such as the flute, the saxophone and the violin. The way they played was reminiscent of a musical dialogue. At the end, the audience and the musicians left the music school, content and in a good mood. The last words by Georg Wissel (improviser of one of the performed pieces): ''I am very pleased, that the pupils collaborated so diligently [...]''.

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Fatih, Fabienne and Georg while the interview is going on.
                       
Georg Wissel, the leader of the Klangorchester, on his impressions of the concert (in German):



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Iceland meets Germany

The cantine - a place of gathering and interpersonal communication. On normal working days in Moers, people spend their breaks and resting periods here and also during the moers festival, the cantine is one of the places where the 'calm' morning hours are spent.
In the Tribera, the Triangle below the Rathaus, free improvisation happens from Saturday until Monday, from 11am until 1pm. The line-ups are announced only shortly before the start of the concert and this spontaneity allows for exciting encounters.

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At the start of the morning sessions 2011, the cantine is well filled: eight musicians try to press and urge onto the stage and the audience stands are densely populated. Musicians from Iceland's New Liberation Orchestra encounter German improvisers.

At the beginning, the drum-set is the centre of power. Some musicians quietly produce sounds from their cymbals and tomtoms, which develops into an individual spiel of instruments which soon melts into a symbiosis of saxophone, trombone, piano, electronics, electronic guitar, flute, contrabass and drums, and surprisingly bursts into rhythmically fixated figures, thereupon loosing itself in electronic dabs, crescendi and hard edges.

Opinions from the audience are recorded here in a little collage:



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Jon Irabagon Trio: feedback from the audience

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