Kunsthaus Salon: Duo NADA

In the organizer's words:

On Thursday, June 5, 2025 at 7.30 pm, the duo NADA will perform in the Kunsthaus Salon series. With their current program "Und morgen wird die Sonne wieder scheinen - Lieder am Rande des Verfalls", the Essen-based duo NADA deals with the decline of both social and musical structures around the central figure of Alma Mahler.

Alma Mahler lived at a time of profound upheaval: in the cultural heyday of Vienna around 1900, an era of the fin de siècle, decadence, the artistic avant-garde and the approaching end of a world order intersected. She moved in the circles of Viennese Modernism, in the field of tension between Art Nouveau, Expressionism and early feminist ideas. Her relationships with personalities such as Gustav Mahler, Oskar Kokoschka, Walter Gropius and Franz Werfel reflected the close interweaving of her personal life and contemporary history. The political and social upheavals of the two world wars, the collapse of the Habsburg Empire, the rise of fascism and finally exile in the USA also shaped her artistic environment.

Alma Mahler was not only a muse, but also a composer, networker and witness to a world in decline. The songs of her environment - characterized by late Romanticism, dissonance and loss - are exemplary for a time in which musical conventions became fragile and a new musical language was sought.

NADA's program approaches this atmosphere between splendour and decay, between Eros and downfall, with a keen sense of the ruptures of modernity - and asks what relevance these songs and life stories still have today.

The pianist Mariko Sudo has gained an international reputation as a versatile and sought-after chamber musician and duo partner. She furthered her piano studies in the USA with Menahem Pressler at the renowned Jacobs School of Music at Indiana University Bloomington. Previously, Arnulf v. Arnim, Dirk Mommertz and Andreas Rainer at the Folkwang-Hochschule Essen were her most important mentors.

In soprano Lena-Maria Kramer, she has found an experienced musician and an accomplished duo partner for her exciting project. Kramer, who has been singing at the Aalto Theater Essen since 2020, began her artistic career in her hometown of Münster. Engagements have already taken her all over Europe, including South Africa. She demonstrates her versatile voice through stylistic diversity and expressive performance. Close collaboration with living composers such as Hauke Jasper Berheide, Manfred Trojahn, Anno Schreier and Rabih Lahoud make her an experienced interpreter of contemporary music.

The concert series is sponsored by the Cultural Office of the City of Essen

Pre-registration possible at: veranstaltung@kunsthaus-essen.de

Price information:

Regular: 20 euros, Reduced: 10 euros, Members: 10 euros