Cisternerne and Strøm present the audiovisual performance OPLØSNING by August Rosenbaum and Ea Verdoner: A three-hour experience combining live-concert, sound installation, performance and video in the underground space of Cisternerne.
In this special event Cisternerne provides the setting for the latest piano composition by the internationally acclaimed composer August Rosenbaum, staged as an audiovisual performance.
Over the course of five months, Rosenbaum has let a piano gradually dissolve in the humidity of the former water reservoirs. The audience will experience how a familiar musical instrument is transformed into a sonic sculpture in decay, where all sound ideals collapse: A shattered soundbox where the wood is cracked, and mold and moisture have taken hold.
“With this piece I have moved completely out of my comfort zone”, August Rosenbaum says.
As an award-winning composer with almost twenty years of experience, he is very familiar with the piano and completely at home in concert halls and sound studios, but in Cisternerne, he wanted to explore the unknown and experiment with the effect of the water reservoir on the instrument. He wanted to accentuate the quietly destructive energy of the space – but quickly realized that the climate of Cisternerne was way more powerful than expected.
“I planned to record sound of the piano over the course of five months, but within a week the notes in the instrument had died, and the body had started to mould and fall apart.”
In collaboration with visual artist and choreographer Ea Verdoner, Rosenbaum stages the piano’s gradual transformation as an audiovisual performance, where music, videos and performers interact with the subterranean architecture. They explore the state of transformation that is already a part of Cisternerne: The slow degradation of the chambers over time, the stalactites that grow and fade, as well as the natural forces that subtly alter the architecture. They turn the climatic conditions of the space into central actors – contained and presented through sound and video.
Both the natural and the processed sounds of the disintegrated piano are presented through a multi-channel speaker system in the three chambers in which the audience can move about freely. Tickets can be bought at the website.
OPLØSNING is derived from Rosenbaum’s and Verdoner’s acclaimed performance installation Celeste, which was exhibited and performed at Copenhagen Contemporary in 2021. The performance concert is presented as a collaboration between Cisternerne and Strøm, and is supported by the Danish Arts Foundation, the Lemvigh-Müller Foundation, the Frederiksberg Foundation, and Arbejdernes Landsbank.
About the artists:
August Rosenbaum (1987) is a pianist and composer, a graduate of The Rhythmic Music Conservatory in Copenhagen. He is known for his work with the piano as both an instrument and a sound tool. Rosenbaum has established himself as a solo artist, composer, and producer with a strong connection to both art and pop culture, most recently with his album songs people together (feat. Ian Isiah, Coco O., and Kool Keith) and a solo concert featuring three pianos at DR Concert Hall in 2024. He has composed for dance, film, and theater, including for The Royal Danish Theatre, The Royal Danish Ballet, Hotel Proforma, the Metropolitan Museum of Art (US), and Palais De Tokyo (FR), in collaboration with artists such as Jesper Just. Through many years of exploring the piano’s potential, Rosenbaum has developed a personal voice and a poetic yet experimental approach to the instrument. He has won two Danish Music Awards, received the Jacob Gades Grant, the Sonning Talent Prize, and the Danish Arts Foundation’s Den Unge Elite.
Ea Verdoner (1985) is a visual artist. She is a graduate from The Danish National School of Performing Arts, International Center of Photography (US), and Roskilde University. Her interdisciplinary practice encompasses film, photography, installation, and live performance, often presented in immersive installations and cross-disciplinary collaborations. Through physical and digital techniques, Verdoner explores the complex ideals and structures in the interplay between the private individual and the global subject. Her works take the form of temporary fictions that rearrange history to shed new light on the present. Verdoner has collaborated with artists such as Lea Guldditte Hestelund and Jesper Just and has created works for institutions like Copenhagen Contemporary (DK), BAM (US), and the Royal Opera House in London (UK).
January 10-11 2025, 5-8 pm.
