de

CONCERTO FOR VIOLIN AND ORCHESTRA

DIE DEUTSCHE KAMMERPHILHARMONIE BREMEN

COMPOSITION ARASH SAFAIAN, SOLO VIOLIN: KAREN GOMYO

THE PROJECT "BIRDSONGS"

 

IS A FULL-LENGTH VIOLIN CONCERT BASED AROUND THE THEME OF THE LANGUAGE OF BIRDS.

IT IS A MUSICAL EXPLORATION OF NATURE AND A STATEMENT ABOUT MAN'S RELATIONSHIP TO HIS NATURAL ENVIRONMENT.

THE
RELEASE
SPRING 2025

release

“WHEN I FIRST HEARD ABOUT THIS WONDERFUL IDEA I WAS DEEPLY MOVED BY ITS APPROACH AND CAN’T WAIT TO HEAR IT BEING PERFORMED.”

DR. SARAH DARWIN

SCIENTIST AT THE MUSEUM OF NATURAL HISTORY BERLIN
AND GREAT-GREAT-GRANDDAUGHTER OF CHARLES DARWIN

News

  • 03/2023

    The Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen starts booking concert halls for the world tour in 2025….

  • 02/2023

    Arash releases his score for the feature film “The Fox” by acclaimed director Adrian Goiginger. The soundtrack is released by the record label Modern Recordings.

MANY THANKS TO OUR SUPPORTERS

HANS OTTO & ALBERT SCHMITT@DEUTSCHE KAMMERPHILHARMONIE BREMEN + KAREN GOMYO + ALEXANDER SLOVAK + CHRISTIAN KELLERSMANN + SVEN MURMANN + PHILIPP ERNST + MATTHIAS PFEFFER + DIRK RUDOLPH + MARKUS BRANDENBURG + MALTE CAN@WIEDEMANN & BERG FILM + HEIKE FALLER@ZEIT MAGAZIN + MAX-PLANCK-INSTITUT FÜR ORNITHOLOGIE, AMMERSEE + CLAUDIA RAMENDA + DR. SARAH DARWIN@MUSEUM FÜR NATURKUNDE BERLIN + ANTJE BOETIUS@ALFRED-WEGENER-INSTITUT + RANDALL POSTER

The Musicans

The
Musicans

ARASH SAFAIAN

COMPONIST

Arash Safaian was born in Tehran and grew up in Germany. He has made a name for himself as a composer with orchestral works, ensemble pieces, film scores and operas and has received several awards for his compositions, including the Echo: Klassik 2017 for his piano concert cycle "ÜberBach" and the Bavarian Film Prize for his film score for "Lara". Arash Safaian's compositions embody a new understanding of beauty and narrative in classical music. His very own and unique combination of compositional art and modern sound language is celebrated on the international stages, as demonstrated not least by his release of the Beethoven Variations.

KAREN GOMYO

SOLO VIOLIN

Karen Gomyo is a musician of the highest calibre. The Chicago Tribune praised her as "...a first-rate artist of genuine musical mastery, vitality, brilliance and intensity." Karen Gomyo has performed with the world's leading orchestras, including the New York Philharmonic, the Deutsche Symphonie-Orchester Berlin, the Dresden Philharmonic, the New Zealand Symphony, the Chicago Symphony, the Cleveland Orchestra, the Philadelphia Orchestra, and the San Francisco, Dallas, Cincinnati, Montreal, Vancouver, St. Louis and Washington, D.C. symphonies. The Tokyo-born artist, who began her musical career in Montréal and New York, has recently moved to Berlin.

DIE DEUTSCHE KAMMERPHILHARMONIE BREMEN

ORCHESTRA

The Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen is one of the world's leading orchestras. The orchestra has been honored with countless prizes and awards - such as Opus and Echo Klassik awards and the Honorary Prize of the German Record Critics - for its globally acclaimed and benchmark Beethoven cycle, as well as the subsequent Schumann and Brahms cycle with Principal Conductor Paavo Järvi, among other groundbreaking projects and the associated writing of interpretive history. The orchestra performs in all the renowned international concert halls as well as at the major music festivals, such as the Salzburg Festival, the BBC Proms and Carnegie Hall in New York.

The project

The
project

In this collaborative project between composer Arash Safaian, creative director Todd Schulz and "Die Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen", a modern concert cycle is being developed.

The violin concerto "BIRDSONGS" refers to Attar's 12th century tale "The Bird Talks" or "The Conference of the Birds" as a source of inspiration for an exploration of a language of nature, the song of birds.

This is to be captured physically and digitally - in a recording - in a new concert experience with visual elements. The project is accompanied by a publication that comments on it in text and images.

The project idea arose from the impulse to create a sensual narrative about our relationship with nature in the face of climate change and climate policy debates.

The concert

The
concert

"The bird is translated for our ears not only through the notation of selected bird calls from all over the world, but also through the sonic imitation of the different soundscapes of its surroundings, the different landscapes. They interest me as the immediate, non-stylised material of nature."

Arash Safaian

For this reason, the sound of nature should emerge directly from the orchestra, without playback or the use of electronic aids. For the sounds of any natural habitat do not arise from a random acoustic organisation, but from the logic of the balance of the living beings that inhabit it - one could understand these soundscapes as an orchestra in which each instrument has its specific place.

This only becomes tangible through the aestheticisation in the composition, so that during the concert the listener is no longer just in the concert hall, but is also acoustically transported into the respective habitat, e.g. forest, mountains, steppe. The work alternates between passages that spring directly from birdsong and those that arise from the musical logic of a modern violin concerto: In this work, the solo violin embodies, poetically speaking, a song that both birds and humans understand.

By translating the birds' song into our human language with the help of music, we connect with the grammar of nature, according to the artistic intention.

The cast

The
cast

SOLO VIOLIN 

STRING ORCHESTRA 

WOODWINDS 

HORNS 

HARPSICHORD/PIANO 

DURATION: CA. 40 - 45 MIN

The narrative of nature

The
narrative of nature

The understanding of music as a language goes back to the observation of birdsong.

In mythological tales, the language of birds is a sacred language to communicate with the divine. In Egyptian advanced civilisation, hieroglyphic writing was referred to as the alphabet of birds, and in Renaissance alchemy, the song of birds formed the basis for magical languages, which were also referred to as musical languages. In the art and poetry of the Asian region, nature is present as part of human existence, which is also where Attar comes from.

Man's reflection on the phenomena of nature is ancient, but "man" has always been at the centre of his own world view. With industrialisation, nature became a romantic image of longing and at the same time a resource for exploitation.

With the climate crisis, we are once again becoming existentially aware of the importance of our natural environment. For a cultural confrontation with nature and to initiate social change, we are more dependent than ever on contemporary narratives on these topics.

The first beep

The
first beep

THE
BIRTH OF
BIRDSONGS

It was late spring 2021 when Arash Safaian and Todd Schulz met once again. Arash is a classical composer, Todd a communications consultant.

They sat in the garden of Todd's house in Brandenburg to talk about an upcoming project of Arash. The sun was shining and the many songbirds in the garden were in high spirits. They were chirping and singing. The fascination about what we heard gave rise to the question of how this rarely beautiful orchestra of voice diversity could ever be captured or better "translated" into a language we know and understand.

Could sheet music and music as we know it be a kind of interpreter to make this unique beauty accessible and experienceable for all? And at the same time send a signal for the preservation of this world threatened by species extinction?

As mentioned earlier, Arash is a composer and the seed for BIRDSONGS was planted.

The birdsongs

The
birdsongs

There are currently about 4,000 different species of songbirds worldwide.

It is common knowledge and widely publicised that songbird populations are declining at an alarming rate year after year and that many of their species are threatened with extinction.

Global ecological development with the loss of nature and habitats, the increase in efficiency-oriented agriculture and the associated insect mortality, as well as global warming are the decisive factors.

Birds are indicator species that serve as a highly sensitive barometer for the state of the environment, and their massive decline signals that the earth's biological systems are in trouble.

Protecting songbirds is not only for the preservation of these creatures that bring us all joy, but it is also in our own interest, because trouble for the birds means trouble for us.

"Birdsongs" can only be a small contribution to the protection of our habitat, but it is precisely the contribution that is available to us as artists and creators of culture to create awareness and sensitivity for the continued existence of these unique, fascinating creatures that have been delighting us humans with their beauty time and again since time immemorial.

The communication

The
communication

The "BIRDSONGS" project is a global concept. Just as most bird species are cosmopolitans, the theme of the violin concerto, the song of birds, is universal and present in every continental and national culture.

It is planned to present "BIRDSONGS" internationally on all available channels and media. All phases from the first steps of compositional development to the premiere and release of the recording will be documented in pictures, text and film and published in suitable media formats.

The goal is to develop a modern, holistic dialogue that is new and unseen in the context of classical music, appropriately conveying the subject matter of the music of "BIRDSONGS" to the outside world through the means of visual media, while raising awareness of the value and preservation of a healthy and enriching natural environment.

Responsible for the communication is Todd Schulz, co-founder of "Birdsongs" and for 15 years creative director and communication strategist for labels such as Deutsche Grammophon, Universal Music, SONY, Warner Bros, for leading artists of international classical music up to Rammstein. Previously, Todd was Executive Creative Director at leading international advertising agencies and responsible for global advertising campaigns for companies such as Adidas, Nike, Coke and others.

Shedule

Shedule

2024 COMPLETION OF COMPOSITION

10 - 2024 STUDIO RECORDINGS

01 - 2025 VIDEO OF 1ST SINGLE

02 - 2025 VIDEO OF 2ND SINGLE

05 - 2025 RELEASE OF CD / VINYL

05 - 2025 VIDEO OF 3RD SINGLE

07 - 2025 CONCERT TOUR GERMANY / EUROPE

Start of booking

Start
of booking

background-headline

The Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen starts booking concert halls for the world tour in 2025....

The feature film “The Fox”

The
feature film “The Fox”

Arash releases his score for the feature film "The Fox" by acclaimed director Adrian Goiginger.

The soundtrack is released by the record label Modern Recordings.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kiRkjT42Nec
Imprint

Imprint
ture film “The Fox”


Imprint

Information according to § 5 TMG

BIRDSONGS GBR

BORSTELLSTR. 62

12167 BERLIN

Represented by:

ARASH SAFAIAN

Contact:

+49 171 6112 3063

E-mail: arash@birdsongs-musicproject.com

Sales tax ID: DE357152020

USales tax identification number according to §27a Umsatzsteuergesetz: Musterustid

Responsible for the content according to § 55 Abs. 2 RStV:

BIRDSONGS GBR

BORSTELLSTR. 62

12167 BERLIN

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