Mensch, Musik! #1 Bridges

Brazilian conductor Simone Menezes is a visionary musician, known for her creativity and innovative spirit, brilliantly combining classical and contemporary repertoire. As the founder of Ensemble K, as a coveted guest conductor with many of the world’s most respected orchestras or in her stunningly creative projects in partnership between music and other arts, Ms. Menezes has established herself as a rapidly rising artist of a new generation.

Simone Menezes has been invited to conduct orchestras such as the Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra, Orchestre National d’Île-de-France, National Symphonic Orchestra of Brazil, Osaka Philharmonic Orchestra, Orchestre National de Lille, Orchestre National des Pays de Loire, and Orchestre National d’Auvergne. Simone Menezes regularly collaborates with the Philharmonie de Paris, both in the framework of education projects supervised by DEMOS and for symphonic concerts. In 2021, she conducts concerts focusing on the Amazon rainforest, in partnership with an exhibition of world-leading photographer Sebastião Salgado.

At the age of 20, Ms Menezes formed her first orchestra in Brazil, the Camerata Latino Americana, a group specializing in the interpretation of Latin American repertoire. The work and model of this ground-breaking ensemble received recognition from the International Society for the Performing Arts of New York. From 2008 to 2012, Simone Menezes was music director of the Unicamp Symphony Orchestra in Brazil, recording two albums of Brazilian contemporary music, which were awarded “Best Brazilian Musical Project” by the Association of Musical Critics of São Paulo.

Simone Menezes studied conducting in Brazil, then at the Ecole Normale de Musique in Paris where she graduated after only one year of study. She regularly received advice from Colin Metters in London and developed her repertoire during residencies with the Remix Ensemble (Portugal) and Ensemble Multilaterale (Paris). In 2019, Simone Menezes won second prize at Mawoma (Maestra Music and Women’s Competition) in Vienna. In 2020, she launched her new orchestra, Ensemble K, a flexible ensemble specializing in the larger chamber repertoire of the 20th century.

Babylon ORCHESTRA, founded in 2016, is a Berlin-based urban fusion ensemble that combines European and Middle Eastern music with the sound of a big band and contemporary orchestra.

The aim is to promote intercultural artistic cooperation and thus to give different musical traditions and cultures a place in a new shared and unique sound world of the present. To this end, the ensemble develops a repertoire that brings the traditional music of the Near and Middle East into dialogue with the musical cultures of Europe, and especially urban elements of the Berlin music scene. What’s more, it provides a space for dialogues of tolerance and respectful interaction in the future, as BO´s second major concern is to find its own answer to a changing world that faces immense social challenges.

Together with the Conservatory of Turkish Music in Berlin (BTMK), BO organised the concert series “Between the Euphrates and Elbe. New songs between the rivers”. Thanks to a generous grant from the Capital Cultural Fund, BO had the opportunity to invite a special selection of high-quality artists from around the world and to make the intercultural musical and literary exchange with them accessible to a broad audience on the Berlin music scene. In 2020, BO released its debut album which won the prize for the best world music record by the German Record Critics´ Association.

In June 2019, the starting shot was fired for BO´s concert series “Babylon ORCHESTRA unVEILed“ thanks to the support of the Senate Department for Culture and Europe. The main focus was on cross-genre collaboration with international visual and acoustic artists, during the course of which the orchestra’s ensemble also tested alternative stage concepts in various locations of the Berlin cultural scene.

In the past, BO has performed at the Komische Oper, HAU, Deutsche Oper, Volksbühne and Heimathafen. Together with the Grand Brothers, BO performed at the Elbphilharmonie, the Bundeskunsthalle Bonn, as well as at the Festival Mozaique and De Doelen in Rotterdam.

In 2021, the Babylon ORCHESTRA will debut with the Dortmunder Philharmoniker, the Staatsorchester Stuttgart and the Rundfunk-Sinfonie- Orchester Berlin under the direction of Simone Menezes. The ensemble will also give a concert in the main hall of the Konzerthaus Berlin and go on tour through southwestern Germany, as well as premiere its first online opera „Unsere Fremden“, based on Camus´ „The stranger“ written by Mischa Tangian, directed by Neil Barry Moss and Sina Salimi.

Osama Abdulrasol is a composer, producer, qanunplayer and visual Artist. He was born in Babylon (Iraq). He studied eastern music, the qanun (Arabic lap harp) and the Oud in Iraq, western music (classical guitar) in the UK. He is the winner of the Belgian cultural prize 2013 in Gent. He wrote music for several projects, for film, for symphonic orchestra for big band, theatre, and more. He arranged and produced music for and performed with different musicians from different backgrounds. Arabic, Jazz, classical orchestra, strings quartet, experimental, Indian, Turkish bands and many more. He performed and toured almost everywhere in the world with the philharmonic orchestra of Antwerpen (de Filharmonie), the Flemish Radio Orchestra, Goran Bregovic, the Dutch Metropole Orchestra, Brussels Jazz Orchestra, Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui, Lucilla Galeazzi, Claron McFadden, Roby Lakatos, Babylon Orchestra, Konrad Koselleck Big Band , Tom Robinson, BJ Scott and many more.

The Moscow-born composer and violinist Mischa Tangian studied with M. Trojahn at the RSH Düsseldorf and perfected his compositional craft with Sir G. Benjamin at King’s College London, made possible thanks to a one-year scholarship from the DAAD.

As a scholarship holder and prize winner of numerous competitions (including the Carl Dörken Foundation, the Deutsche Bank Foundation or E.On), he has received numerous awards. In 2014 he was the winner of the International Opera Competition “Neue Szenen II” of the Deutsche Oper Berlin and in 2018 finalist of the international composition competition “île de Création” (Paris). His music has been performed by numerous ensembles at home and abroad, including the Orchestre National d’île der France, Orchestre de Radio France (Paris), the Russian Philharmony Orchestra (Moscow), Festino Chamber Choir (St Petersburg), Zafraan Ensemble (Berlin), Quatour Diotima, the Cosmos Quartet (Barcelona) and, of course, his ensemble Babylon ORCHESTRA.

For the 2014/15 season of the Deutsche Oper Berlin, Mischa Tangian developed the music theatre show In Transit and was commissioned to write his first opera in absentia. Both were premiered at the Tischlerei of the Deutsche Oper. In 2014 he wrote the short opera Carmen en los infiernos with the Spanish writer Helena Tornero, which was commissioned by the Festival Castell Peralada (Spain) and performed at the Neuköllner Oper Berlin and the Arts Centre St. Monica in Barcelona, among others. In 2016, the Staatsoper Hannover commissioned him to write a chamber opera for young people (Moby Dick).

From 2016-18 Mischa Tangian was a fellow of the Deutsche Bank Foundation’s Akademie Musiktheater Heute. As part of this programme, he composed the chamber opera Die Nacht der Seeigel for the Hamburg State Opera, which premiered in May 2019. In addition to music theatre, Mischa Tangian also regularly collaborates with artists from other music and media genres. He developed larger arrangements with the electric piano duo Grandbrothers and performed with them at Reworks Thessaloniki, the Elbphilharmonie or in Rotterdam, among others. In early 2016, he founded the Babylon ORCHESTRA together with Sofia Surgutschowa, which brings together musicians from the Middle East and Europe and develops new music between modern classical, jazz and world music. The Babylon ORCHESTRA’s debut album, which included several compositions by Mischa Tangian and was produced by him, received the German Record Critics’ Award for Best World Music Album in 2020. Future collaborations with the Symphony Orchestra of the Philharmonie Dortmund and the State Opera Orchestra Stuttgart are planned for 2021/22, also an own opera production with Babylon ORCHESTRA and traditional and non-classical singers (2022).

Mahir Duman is a visual artist and VJ based in Berlin, presenting live performances, interactive installations, and projection mapping in various European countries, especially for concerts, music- and art festivals, clubs, and art galleries.

He was born in Ordu, Turkey, and lived in Istanbul for many years. In 2011 he moved to Berlin and expanded his life and work as an artist. Duman studied Industrial Engineering at Yıldız Technical University in Istanbul, Turkey, and Digital Film & Visual Effects at the SAE Institute in Berlin, Germany. He produces videos, short films, music clips, and lots of other media sets, mixed and synchronized with sound and the rhythm of action.

Born in East Berlin, after graduating from high school she worked as a typesetter in a print shop, at various publishing houses, at the GDR Composers’ Association and for the radio. She works freelance for the RBB station Radioeins and has been a writer since 2010.

Neil was born in South Africa and studied Opera and Performance in Cape Town. In Italy he won the Masters Directing Scholarship at the Verona Accademia dell’Opera, and in 2015 made his Italian debut with Mozart’s „Le Nozze di Figaro“ at the Teatro Rossini in Pesaro. From 2016 until 2019 he worked at the Hannover Staatsoper as in-house Stage Director, Costume Designer and Assistant Stage Director and in June 2018 he was the runner up in the 10th European Opera Directing Prize in Zurich, Switzerland. Since June 2019 Neil has worked as in-house Stage Director, Costume Designer and Assistant Stage Director at the Deutsche Oper Berlin and made his house debut with „Das Rheingold auf dem Parkdeck“. In May 2021 he collaborated with Babylon Orchestra to release the world premier of their first Online-Oper, “Unsere Fremden“ with Music by Mischa.