Young composer Jamie Man and music icon Blixa Bargeld find each other in a joint ode to darkness with a big orchestra in which Bargeld’s voice has a central place.

For this monumental piece of music, composer Jamie Man was inspired by the rise of Dark Sky Reserves and astronomical mystery: with every molecule of understanding we gain, the mystery of our universe increases exponentially. We project our stories, questions and the significance of our existence onto this dark, unknown space. We seek the light in the darkness and sometimes the stars seem to answer.

Extreme peripheries of the human auditory spectrum

For Dark Skies, Man is working with a group of forty-five musicians whose instruments and sounds coalesce without pandering to classical orchestration. The orchestra has an extraordinary makeup including seven percussionists of Slagwerk Den Haag and a deconstructed organ providing a heavy focus on the extreme peripheries of the human auditory spectrum. The highest frequencies and the lowest, right down through to infrasound, are distributed electronically throughout the space through speakers, subs and objects. At the heart of this constellation of sound is one exceptional human ‘voice machine’, the legendary Blixa Bargeld, lead singer of the band EINSTÜRZENDE NEUBAUTEN.

The extraordinary setup allows the audience to move freely between the various clusters of musicians and objects arranged throughout the room.

Jamie Man:

‘It is in darkness that nocturnal beasts hunt their prey. The lights that brighten our nights threaten their existence and pollute our own view of the astronomical wonders. It is only through dark skies that we are able to see beyond the confines of our own atmosphere and in turn, broaden the horizon of our existential limits.’

With the support of Muziekfonds Mauricio Kagel.