Musicophilia
By Meta Theatre (Munich)
Created by Norbert Niemann
Composed by Steffen Wick / Artistic Direction by Axel Tangerding
The inspiration and starting point for this journey is Oliver Sacks’ Musicophilia. Musicophilia, the ‘love for music’, is unique to the human species and is to be found in all cultures. In his bestseller, Sacks portrays people who lose or even gain their musicality after a neurological disease. He deals with problems of acoustic perceptions such as earworms, Tinnitus, hallucinations, amusia or phenomena of short unexpected recovery from certain diseases like Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, and amnesia through the power of music. Also treated are other phenomena of the brains of musicians like absolute pitch and the synaesthetic correlation between musical and visual perception.
The award-winning German author Norbert Niemann has created a stage-version with four characters / four performers: an actor/performer, two musicians, and an actress / singer.
“Alex Tangerding, director of Meta Theater… has transformed Musicophilia, a work that intersects the fields of music and neurology, into a theatre spectacle. A rich and deep score elevates the performance. Sonic hallucinations, such as sounds with infinite range, a series of glissandi, the drum bit of rain that suggests hands clapping, have all been integrated… the ambient sound gives the impression of the audience being inside the brain.’
– Lucie Renaud, Revue JEU (Montreal)