The title Orbit: A War Series is a reference to the New York artist Nancy Spero: deeply moved by the photographs of the Vietnam War that were circulating in the media, Spero investigated the links between sexuality, violence, and power in The War Series (1966–70). The subject of oppressive power structures revealed in her art is horrifyingly relevant today. Orbit: A War Series appeals to the images in our minds: Brigitta Muntendorf’s immersive 3D audio space oratorio is like an electroacoustic series of narratives in which sounds, texts, voices, and space become transmitters of power structures.

The texts are based on interviews and reports from Afghanistan, Iran, DR Congo, Poland, the U.S., and Asia during the Second World War. The musical spaces of violence, protection, escape, or exhibition form the acoustic habitat of the voices that their bodies left behind to form vocal clones and immortal warriors of a posthuman and techno-futuristic chorus that proclaims an opera of the future that is as sensorial as it is political.

Composition, artistic direction: Brigitta Muntendorf
Concept: Moritz Lobeck, Brigitta Muntendorf
Dramaturgy: Mehdi Moradpour
Audio programming: Lukas Nowok
Lighting: Begoña Garcia Navas
3D audio: Banu Sahin, Ralf Zuleeg (d&b audiotechnik)
Field Recordings: Alfred Wegener Institute / NOAA-Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory
AI voice clone models: Respeecher, Lisa Aithnard, Arjopa Limburg, Nikka Mae-Lopez
War Correspondent (Prologue): Christina Lamb

PARTICIPANTS
Brigitta Muntendorf: The German-Austrian composer Brigitta Muntendorf explores the fragility of our techno-social and socio-political reality and develops new concepts such as Radical Listening, Environmental Storytelling and Immersive Theater. Her works range from instrumental settings and 3D audio productions to transdigital music theater and are often created in artistic-scientific collaborations with d&b audio and S+T+ARTS/Ars Electronica.
Muntendorf has been honored with prestigious awards, including the Ernst von Siemens Music Foundation Award and the German Music Writer's Prize. In 2023, her trilogy for two pianos was awarded the German Record Critics' Prize. She has been artist-in-residence in Kyoto (Villa Kamogawa) and Paris (Cité des Arts), and her works have been presented at international music and art festivals such as Kyoto Experiment, ULTIMA Oslo, Donaueschinger Musiktage, Wiener Festwochen, Münchener Biennale, Festival d'Automne Paris and Hollandfestival.Muntendorf has been Professor of Composition at the HfMT Cologne since 2018, and in 2024 she was accepted as a full member of the North Rhine-Westphalian Academy of Sciences, Humanities and the Arts.

Moritz Lobeck studied musicology, urban sociology and psychology at the Humboldt University in Berlin. He worked as a curator and communications consultant in Berlin and as a dramaturge with director Andrea Moses at the State Operas in Stuttgart, Berlin and Vienna, with conductors such as Daniel Barenboim, Sylvain Cambreling and Ingo Metzmacher. From 2011, he worked as a dramaturge and Head of Marketing/Development at the Stuttgart State Opera under Jossi Wieler, and from 2014 as a curator at the Wiener Festwochen under Markus Hinterhäuser. Since 2019, he has directed the international festival DTZM - Dresdner Tage der zeitgenössischen Musik and is Program Director for Music and Media at HELLERAU - European Center for the Arts. Here he initiated the HYBRID Biennale festival in 2022 as well as numerous international projects and collaborations, including with the Biennale di Venezia, IRCAM Paris, ZKM Karlsruhe, Ars Electronica and MUTEK, artists such as Chaya Czernowin, Ryoji Ikeda, Maria Hassabi, Ulf Langheinrich and Claudia Märzendorfer or ensembles such as Les Percussions de Strasbourg, Ensemble Modern, Zeitkratzer, Pisse and Staatskapelle Dresden. He has been working regularly with the artist Brigitta Muntendorf since 2020. Together, they have since conceived innovative concert and opera projects such as “Covered Culture”, “MELENCOLIA” and “ORBIT - A War Series”.
A cooperation with the Staatsoper Unter den Linden
Production of La Biennale di Venezia and ECHO Factory
With the kind support of the Kunststiftung NRW, the Goethe-Institut and the Ernst von Siemens Music Foundation.

- Price: EUR 16.00, reduced EUR 8.00
- Duration: 90 min
- No language skills required
- Venue: Hall 2, ground floor read less