A new perspective on the River Thames
Heiner Goebbels
The German composer and director performed in A Room for London on Sunday 26 February 2012. Recording below
This musical response to Joseph Conrad’s 1890 journal Up-River Book saw Goebbels joined by Senegalese Griots Sira and Boubakar Djebaté (voice and kora), the French musician Xavier Garcia (electronics) and the actor André Wilms.
Photograph by Wonge Bergmann
“When I heard that the steamboat Roi des Belges would be stranded on the rooftop of the Queen Elizabeth Hall, Southbank Centre, this was a perfect opportunity to work on Joseph Conrad's Up-River book, a notebook written in 1890, while struggling with this ship a long time before writing Heart of Darkness. So I invited friends with whom, 20 years ago, I had already worked on his Congo Diary for my music theatre production Ou bien le débarquement désastreux (or the hapless landing). They are the Sengalese Griots Sira and Boubakar Djebaté (voice and kora), the French musician Xavier Garcia (electronics) and the great actor André Wilms. Together we will build an acoustic image of Conrad’s impossible travels.”
The composer and director Heiner Goebbels (*1952) belongs to the most important exponents of the contemporary music and theatre scene. His compositions for ensembles and big orchestras published by Ricordi Munich are currently performed worldwide as well as several of his music theatre works and staged concerts, mostly produced by Théâtre Vidy Lausanne and the Ensemble Modern.
Heiner Goebbels works as a professor at the Institute for Applied Theatre Studies of the Justus Liebig University in Giessen (Germany) and is President of the Theatre Academy Hessen. From 2012 to 2014 he is the artistic director of the International Festival of the Arts RUHRTRIENNALE.
Sounds from a Room live gigs are in collaboration with the Guardian.
