zamus: zentrum für alte musik - Germany

zamus:
- is a platform for the more than 170 musicians and ensembles of the Kölner Gesellschaft für Alte Musik e.V. (KGAM), which supports zamus
- organizes and supports scientific, innovative and experimental events and series with a focus on early music.
- is committed to the independent early music scene in NRW, is its musical contact point and contributes to its international appeal
- connects artists, scholars, amateur musicians, children, young people, students and all music lovers
- offers space for all those interested in early music in new formats
- is the lighthouse project next to the Helios Tower in the center of Cologne-Ehrenfeld and a unique music center in Germany.

For 3 February 2024, the young baroque ensemble Lantana Camara has put together a concert for zamus: unlimited called "Beyond Baroque - Early Music, Transcultural Impulses and Orientalism" with works that have one thing in common: They are dedicated to what was seen at the time as the "oriental other" - its sound, different cultures and musical practices.
The programme includes pieces such as Telemann's "Les Nations", which depicts various nations and their cultural characteristics, Jean-Baptiste Lully's "Marche pour la Cérémonie des Turcs" and Pancrace Royer's "Air pour les turcs".
The programme also shows that European composers were inspired by the instruments of non-European cultures, such as Giovanni Girolamo Kapsberger, who attempts to depict the sound of the long-necked lute in "Colascione".
Or that musical practices in the West and East have parallels, namely when it comes to improvisational practices. The ensemble is made up of harpsichord, lute, viola da gamba, violin and transverse flute, reinforced in places by kamancheh.

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In the context of important current post-colonial debates about Eurocentrism and cultural appropriation, however, it is also clear that the reception of the so-called "Orient" as a Western imagination and a space of fascination for the "exotic other" is a problematic one, as existing stereotypes and power dynamics of the gaze from Europe to the East are multiplied in art and music. The concert will be moderated by Sara Beimdieke (University of Cologne), who is a musicologist and researcher in the field of exoticism and orientalism.