$10 at door
For the first show of our 2019-2020 season, the APTL Ensemble will perform two recent works by Antoine Beuger: "do we still have time?" (2019) and "now is the moment to learn hope" (2017).
"do we still have time?" is inspired by and dedicated to theologian Catherine Keller, whose work has had a deep impact on Antoine and his music. The piece takes it's title from a short text by Antoine and is a delicate, fragile transmission of the text in it's entirety. It poses the urgent question "do we still have time?" when we are "inexorably moving forward into catastrophe" and offers a powerful affirmation that, yes, there is always time.
"now is the moment to learn hope" is a musical practice where players and listeners attend to humble, delicate, fragile sounds "caringly, daringly, in wondering, pondering communion." The piece takes its title from, a public address that John Holloway gave at the Rediscovering the Radical Conference, held in Liverpool in 2016. In the score, Antoine quotes the following passage from Holloway’s address:
Now is the moment to learn hope.
Now, when there seems so little ground for hope;
Now, when refugees and migrants are drowning in the sea;
Now, when racism and fascism are surging in Europe and North America and elsewhere;
Now, when even to mention hope seems like a sick joke or an insult to millions and millions of young people who face a life of unemployment, or sometimes worse—employment!
Now is the time to learn hope…
not just to hope that everything will be alright.
But to learn hope … hope as a way of thinking that opens paths to a different world.