INTERNATIONAL MESSIAEN DAYS GÖRLITZ-ZGORZELEC: “FEAR AND HOPE”

INTERNATIONAL MESSIAEN DAYS GÖRLITZ-ZGORZELEC:

“FEAR AND HOPE”

APRIL 29 – MAY 2, 2021

The festival will create a space where we will have the opportunity to once again try to understand the fears and hopes accompanying the prisoners of Stalag VIII A in Görlitz (today’s Zgorzelec). First of all, taking into account our fears, problems and hopes today, we will try to understand how, despite the enormous suffering, the prisoners were able to find faith in a better tomorrow.

The festival was postponed to the spring. New date: April 29 – May 2, 2021

January 15 is a unique date in the history of music. Exactly 80 years ago, on January 15, 1941, one of the most remarkable concerts of the 20th century took place on the outskirts of Görlitz. French composer Olivier Messiaen (1908 – 1992) was a prisoner of the Stalag VIII A POW camp. On that day, together with three other musicians, for the first time performed his “Quatuor pour la fin du temps” (Quartet for the End of Time) – one of the most important works in the history of 20th century music.

Every year, since 2008, exactly on the day of its premiere on January 15, the Meetingpoint Music Messiaen association has been organizing a Quartet concert commemorating this extraordinary event. However, the coronavirus pandemic this year thwarted festival plans. The International Messiaen Days, centered on the ‘End of Time Quartet’ concert on January 15, cannot traditionally be held this month. The Messiaen Days program “Fear and Hope” is now finished, but the festival had to be postponed to spring and will be held on April 29 – May 2, 2021. The Messiaen days will be opened by a speech by Gesine Schwan, winner of the Görlitz / Zgorzelec Europe Bridge Award and former candidate for the post of federal president of Germany. A unique point of the festival will be, among others jazz adaptation of Messiaen’s Quartet performed by the legend of the jazz scene from Dresden, Günter Baby Sommer.

Despite the current limitations, the 80th anniversary of the premiere of the Quartet in Stalag VIII A will not go unnoticed in Görlitz and Zgorzelec. The Catholic parish of Heiliger Wenzel invites you to the Church of St. Cross (Heilig Kreuz Kirche) at Struvestraße 19 in Görlitz for a service and musical meditation in memory of Olivier Messiaen and his Quartet and 120 thousand. prisoners of war who were held in the camp from 1939 to 1945 and forcibly used to work in Görlitz.

Additionally, on the occasion of the anniversary of the Quartet’s premiere in the second half of January, a festival magazine will be published. The publication will be released in two languages, Polish and German. It will include articles on, inter alia, the period of the captivity of Olivier Messiaen in the POW camp in Görlitz and Polish-German work for memory, based on the history of Stalag VIII A. In addition, the full program of the 5th edition of the International Days of Messiaen Görlitz-Zgorzelec will be published in the magazine. The exact date of publication of the magazine will be announced soon. It will be available from Meetingpoint Music Messiaen e.V. (Demianiplatz 40, 02826 Görlitz) and at other locations in Görlitz and Zgorzelec, about which we will inform you on our website. The digital version of the magazine will also be available on the page:

https://www.en.messiaen-tage.eu/

Festival: information on the program, program changes and tickets The festival program can be also found here with the information about possible changes to the program https://www.en.messiaen-tage.eu/Information about the pre-sale of tickets and a link to our online store will also appear on festival page.