Stegreif

Do orchestras always have to play sitting down and read the music from the printed score? Or can’t this also be done by memory, with a free approach? The Berlin-based Ensemble Stegreif, which was founded in 2015 and includes musicians from many countries, calls itself an “improvising symphony orchestra.” It takes well-known repertoire classics and “recomposes” them, bringing them into our time. Works like Anton Bruckner’s Seventh Symphony, which Stegreif member Alistair Duncan arranged for the 200th anniversary of the composer’s birth. Saxophone, electric guitar, and drum set also play along, there is singing, and the performers move casually across the stage. Of course, Bruckner’s music is unmistakable, but in a different way: sometimes jazzy and sometimes with a folk song touch, sometimes with Arabic sprinklings or techno beats. The Adagio in particular, which Bruckner wrote in response to the death of Richard Wagner, thus becomes a “composed work of mourning for an (im)possible future.” For its previous “#free ...” projects, Stegreif was awarded the Würth Prize and was named Trend Brand of the Year 2019, among others; most recently, it received the Tonali “Courage for Utopia” Award in 2023.