The European Bridges Ensemble (EBE) was established for Internet and network music performance. Its current members are the five performers Kai Niggemann (Münster, Germany), Ádám Siska (Budapest, Hungary), Johannes Kretz (Vienna, Austria), Andrea Szigetvári (Dunakeszi, Hungary), Ivana Ognjanović (Belgrade, Serbia), the conductor and software designer Georg Hajdu (Hamburg, Germany), and video artist Stewart Collinson (Lincoln, England).
Using the term bridges as a metaphor, the Ensemble attempts to bridge cultures, regions, locations and individuals, each with their specific history. Particularly, Europe with its historical and ethnic diversity has repeatedly gone through massive changes separating and reuniting people often living in close vicinity. The aim is to further explore the potential of taking participating musicians and artists out of their political and social isolation by creating virtual communities of like-minded artists united by their creativity and mutual interests.
The first Bridges concert on 17 June 2005 (simultaneously in Münster, Stuttgart and Vienna) brought together musicians from the former West (Austria and Germany) and East (Hungary and Serbia) – all connected by the river Danube – and thus demonstrated the potential of Internet performance as a means to overcome national borders and political single-mindedness.
Read more about European Bridges Ensemble: Network Music and Quintet.net, Repertoire, Concerts
Famous quotes containing the words european and/or bridges:
“When the inhabitants of some sequestered island first descry the “big canoe” of the European rolling through the blue waters towards their shores, they rush down to the beach in crowds, and with open arms stand ready to embrace the strangers. Fatal embrace! They fold to their bosoms the vipers whose sting is destined to poison all their joys; and the instinctive feeling of love within their breasts is soon converted into the bitterest hate.”
—Herman Melville (1819–1891)
“As night is withdrawn
From these sweet-springing meads and bursting boughs of May,
Dream, while the innumerable choir of day
Welcome the dawn.”
—Robert Bridges (1844–1930)