About the Voices Beyond the Wall Project

Overview:

The Voices Beyond the Wall project serves to highlight compositions from East German and West musicians by recording selected works from divided Germany and compiling and sharing the recordings on a dedicated project website.

This project aims to expose listeners to new works that are not often performed and to create a digital archive for works that do not have any recordings. It also encourages listeners to think critically about larger patterns of artistic erasure during divided Germany and after the reunification, what it means that these works are not easily accessible, and how themes of artistic erasure are applicable today.

Problem: Loss of Cultural Artifacts

The Wendezeit was an incredibly turbulent time and within this period of transition, there are many pieces of forgotten history.

It’s important to remember the context of these works within the larger historical events — we don’t want to and we cannot afford to forget the impact and importance of this time period because these themes of artistic narratives being controlled are still incredibly relevant.

I bumped into this research gap often during my thesis project. I would come across a composer or work who I hadn’t heard of. I would google them, and it was as if their works didn’t exist. I couldn’t pull up a recording to get an understanding of their musical style. This observation served as the starting point for Voices Beyond the Wall.

Initially, I wanted to put on a concert. However, after further consideration, I realized that I didn’t want the music to come to life for one day and never be heard again. I wanted to create something that could be heard again and be the reference material that I couldn’t find when I was working in the archives.

Process:

I did preliminary research in Northwestern's library on compositions from divided Germany and selected several works for this project.

I then contacted professors at several institutions with audio engineering programs to find interested students. This is how I became connected with Henry Madden at DePaul University!

I began rehearsals with my pianist Kay Kim before two recording sessions at DePaul University.

Impact:

The goal of this project is to allow the audience to engage with unfamiliar works in a meaningful way. I aim to provide historical context for the programmed works and allow listeners to see how the turbulence of the reunification of Germany in 1989 played a role in these works being removed from mainstream performance.

I hope that by recording these works and making them accessible to the public, listeners will be exposed to works they are unfamiliar with and that having an easily accessible reference recording will encourage musicians to continue programming and performing these works.

A primarily goal in compiling these recordings is to provide a tangible way for musicians to preview a piece to encourage programming: a work is more likely to be programmed if the musician can conceptualize the end sound. My goal in making recordings publicly available is to make it easier for performers to have reference recordings of these works, which could decrease barriers in these works being selected for performance in the future.