Active experiencing, testing and participating make the right mix for approaching contemporary music and identifying with it. This is the reason why the Gare du Nord brings together amateur musicians with professionals and composers. In long-term based projects they collectively develop new forms of music and with their own questions converge to contemporary music.
We started with the project «Questions» – choir lab, in the season of 2016/17. Followed by «Looping Journey» – A journey between art and music in cooperation with the Kunstmuseum Basel. The result of these projects was captured in photos, videos and texts.
Enjoy yourself whilst looking through our archive box!
April 2018 – Mai 2019
The Basle-based amateur choirs bâlcanto, ATempo and Kultur und Volk got together with the Swiss voice performers Jeannine Hirzel, Isa Wiss, Andreas Schaerer and Christian Zehnder and followed their journey from the Kunstmuseum Basel through town to the Gare du Nord. They were inspired by the exhibition «Basel Short Stories. Von Erasmus bis Iris von Roten» at the Kunstmuseum Basel and devised musical improvisations of their favorite exhibition themes. The results were pinned in images of music and finally were presented as premieres at the Gare du Nord.
April 2016 – Mai 2017
The first part of «Questions» was the choir lab, a cooperation between the Basle amateur choirs Choriosa, the Mädchenkantorei Basel (girls church choir) and the Singchor Basel that took place during two seasons and in which the participants formulated questions about New Music to the Gare du Nord audience. Finding inspiration in these questions and through intense communication together with the choirs the three composers Matthias Heep, Leo Dick and Sylwia Zytynska then each composed a new piece of work for one of the choirs, after which it was premiered in a collective concert at the Gare du Nord.
May 2024 – June 2024
In cooperation with the Collectif barbare, the participatory music theatre project ‘L'Invitation’ brought together people of different backgrounds, ages, genders and life experiences to gain stage experience and discover new music.
Between May and June 2024, intensive rehearsals were held at the Quartiertreffpunkt Hirzbrunnen and at the Gare du Nord, where participants experimented with self-built synthesizers. Gare du Nord, located in the border station Badischer Bahnhof Basel, provided an ideal stage for this intercultural project. The theatre became a place to encounter the foreign. A multi-layered acoustic and visual journey was staged in the middle of the audience.
Astride Schlaefli (concept/director/sound/video), Armelle Scholl (composition/music), David Merz (electronics/music), Christian Kuntner (project management/sound design/sound engineering), Stephan Schwendimann (stage), Florence Schlumberger (administration), Michael Eigenmann (lighting/technical director), Vera Silberring (movement), Natania Prezant (dramaturgy), and others