“You can’t imagine it. The rush, the fear, the heartbeat, the breath, the emotion, the heat.” With these words, Ofer Waldman’s collection of short stories, Singularkollektiv, dives into a world beyond the glamour commonly associated with classical music. A world beneath the thin layer of white tie and tails, in which the orchestra resembles a wide steppe, a place where trains pass by, without stopping. A place which smells of brass and oil, wood and sweat. From the narrow gap between the loneliness of the practice room and the anonymity of the orchestral rows, between musical bureaucracy and unprofitable art emerge fantasies, observations, social aphorisms. The violinist who pretends to be playing and celebrates her silent art, the rejected trombonist who worries about the new music director’s approval. The lousy cellist who clings to his cello like a shipwrecked man, the violinist who is late but whom nobody waits for. The mock reality of a dress rehearsal. The unusual instruments that didn’t make it into the orchestral canon. Characters and moments originating from the world of the orchestra while at the same time standing out from it as human, social commentary.

Ofer Waldman was born in Jerusalem in 1979. As one of the first members of the West-Eastern Divan Orchestra he moved to Berlin in its founding year 1999 to study horn. He subsequently played with Berlin’s Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester and Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester, New Israeli Opera, and the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra. He received a PhD in History from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and in German Literature from Freie Universität Berlin. Since 2015, he has worked as a freelance writer, primarily for German radio stations. He was awarded the ARD’s Deutscher Hörspielpreis in 2021.

Featuring a musical performance by Dor Yadlin (French horn)

Presented in German. Admission is free, registration is required.