Video-Colloquium “Culture” with Dirk Kaftan
The question we are talking about in this converstion is: “Does culture foster social cohaesion?” We are talking with Dirk Kaftan, general music director of the City of Bonn and the Beethoven Orchestra Bonn, Germany. He has performed at numerous venues in and outside Europe. His mission is to also reach audience outside the concert hall by crossing borders and opening up the spectrum of expected perfpormances of classical music. In the first year of his function as general music director, he succeeded in doubling the number of visitors in the concert area.
Crossing borders ist a leitmotif of Dirk Kaftan’s work. With Sabria David he is talking of Beethovens symphonies in the Columbian jungle, filterbubbles, his interpretation of “high” and “deep” cultures and why culture has to be political.
Is music just notes? Is Notre Dame just a building? And: What can we learn from culture as a fundamental human language we all universally share, transnationally, for Europe?
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The question what visions we share have also been debated in the video-session with Ulrike Guérot, Vincent Engel and Stamen Belchev (“Europe – a wish concert. Visions for a Europe of the Future“).
„Music is the product of migration“ says Dirk Kaftan. The aspect of migration in the European discourses have also been adressed in the “Fear”-Sessions with Vasili Sofiadellis and Fernando Valespin.
We apologize for the echo in the sound and will give you a transription of the conversation to make listening easier.
