On five evenings, Manos Tsangaris, composer and director of the Music Section at the Akademie der Künste, is transforming the Akademie building on Hanseatenweg into a dense web of music theatre miniatures. winzig und der Elefant is the title of his playful work of music theatre, which uses contemporary station theatre to place listeners at the centre of a piece in which all the intersecting lines of the composition, space and the world come together.
FACTS:
1: Nothing is more accessible to the mind than the infinite. (“Nichts ist dem Geist erreichbarer, als das Unendliche.”)
Novalis
2: Re-ligion = re-connecting is indispensable.
3: The question remains, how the desire for competition and the necessity of justice could together form a useful social system.
QUESTIONS:
1. What is the biggest inspiration for your music?
Space (as concrete physical space, as social space, as movement space, as compositional space, as light and sound space, as mystery, as metaphor of existence, as question and challenge).
2. How and when did you get into making music?
I’ve been making music since I can remember. One of my earliest scenes in my head is how I sat on the floor and play the harmonica. My godmother says, for heaven’s sake, what is this unmusical child. I don’t think she liked children.
3. What are 5 of your favourite albums of all time?
Oh dear.
4. What do you associate with Berlin?
Different aspects of Karma. Very lively.
5. What’s your favourite place in your town?
At home.
6. If there was no music in the world, what would you do instead?
Music.
7. What was the last record/music you bought?
?
8. Who would you most like to collaborate with?
Novalis. Jaki Liebezeit. Nicola Gründel.
9. What was your best gig (as performer or spectator)?
The gig tomorrow.
10. How important is technology to your creative process?
I like pencils, audio transmission, lighting systems, everything that is useful. The truth is always new. Beauty has no gender and no age.
11. Do you have siblings and how do they feel about your career/art?
My brother is four years older than me.
He is very musical.
I hope he likes what I do now.
Manos Tsangaris performs his album winzig und der Elefant at the Akademie der Künste on the 24th, 25th and 30th of May.
Photo © Moritz Hammerschlag
