VOICing
What happens when one person begins to sing for another? What significance can the human voice gain within an instrumental concert?
Pianist Marlene Heiß and clarinetist Žilvinas Brazauskas are instrumentalists who also seek direct contact with the audience through their voices. In their concerts, they explore possibilities that transform the concert hall into a space that is both stage and site of encounter – at once performative framework and personal exchange, ritual and intimate gesture. The dialogue between voice and instruments generates unique tensions: between closeness and distance, public presentation and subjective articulation, virtuosity and vulnerability.
The concert forms part of the artistic experiments within the dissertation project “Beyond Kunstlied – Classical Song Art in the Field of Tension between Expansion and Concentration” by Marlene Heiß. The aim is to develop a free, vibrant, and personal approach to classical song in the 21st century. At its core lies a critical distance from today’s widespread retrospective performance practice, which seeks to recreate the bourgeois conventions of the 19th century “authentically” – along with its unwritten laws, expectations, and taboos. In contrast, the project explores ways of breaking out of this code of behavior and of unfolding the original spirit of the Romantic Lied – intimacy, poetry, and subtle nuance – in a contemporary form.
Program
Werner Pirchner (1940-2001): 3 bars Moll, 3 bars Dur, 4 bars? - 23 bars. aus: Sonate vom rauhen Leben
Henry Cowell (1897-1966): Six Casual Developments
Rebecca Clarke (1886-1979): Morpheus
Mieczysław Weinberg (1919-1996): Sonate op. 28: Allegro - Allegretto - Adagio
Charles Ives (1874-1954): Songs my mother told me (Adolf Heyduk)
Marlene Heiß
Piano
Marlene Heiß is a pianist specializing in song performance (Lied). Her work is characterized by her frequent dual role as both a musician and curator, where she brings together her two greatest passions: the study and performance of music from various eras and styles, and the continual re-contextualization and questioning of these through cross-genre, interdisciplinary collaborations and the setting of intellectual focal points.
Engagements as a musician and artistic director of her own projects have taken her to venues such as the Philharmonie Berlin and the Elbphilharmonie Hamburg, as well as to festivals like the Venice Art Night, Heidelberger Frühling, Bachfest Leipzig, Davos Festival and the Osterfestspiele Baden Baden. She is a prizewinner of International chamber music competitions and has taught at the Berlin University of the Arts, the University of the Arts Bremen and the Hochschule für Musik ‘Hanns Eisler’ Berlin. She is currently a junior researcher and doctoral candidate at the Centre for Artistic Research at the University of Music and Performing Arts Graz, where she is researching the possibilities of an expanded understanding of classical song art in the 21st century . In 2024/25 she was also appointed curator of 'ZeitGenuss - Festival für Musik unserer Zeit' of the city of Karlsruhe.
Žilvinas Brazauskas
Clarinet
Clarinettist and singer Žilvinas Brazauskas is a versatile soloist and chamber musician, known for his charismatic performances that range from classical repertoire to jazz improvisations. The Lithuanian-born artist has appeared as a soloist with orchestras such as the Konzerthausorchester Berlin, the Brussels Philharmonic, and the Munich Chamber Orchestra. In addition, he performs with the chamber music ensembles Jazzical Class and Trio Agora, where he explores a wide spectrum of styles from jazz to contemporary music, as well as his own compositions and arrangements.
His passion for singing began early, when at the age of six he joined a jazz choir; two years later he started playing the clarinet. Over time, he integrated the clarinet into his concerts and now weaves both instruments seamlessly into his performances.
Furthermore, Žilvinas also plays the traditional Lithuanian folk instrument birbynė, which he enthusiastically introduces to his audiences.