Bach And The Climate Crisis In Berlin

Bach And The Climate Crisis

“Bach and The Climate Crisis” is a live performance of the Goldberg Variations by Bach with a dynamic mix of haunting and abstract aerial imagery from industrial sites and close-ups of the performing musician, it creates a unique sensory multi-media experience while increasing awareness of the environmental crisis we all face.

Johan Rockström of the Potstdam Institute for Climate begins the evening with a synopsis of the current status of climate science. Then pianist Tomoki Park plays Bach’s Goldberg Variations while J Henry Fair projects his multimedia interpretation of Leipzig, brown coal, and the industrial revolution.

“Bach And The Climate Crisis” is a live performance of Bach’s Goldberg Variations integrated with with a dynamic mix of abstract, haunting imagery of the German coal industry, and close-up video of the performing musician. It creates a unique multi-media experience while increasing awareness of our impending peril.

Composed in Leipzig at the dawn of European industrialization, "The Goldberg Variations" echoes the genius and complexity of German math, science and engineering, which are the basis of its economic, scientific, and industrial achievements in the centuries hence.

Leipzig, the hometown of Bach's genius, is also the center of German brown coal.

In spite of the climate crisis, Germany, as does most of the world, still gets 30% of its electricity from coal, the most polluting and climate-damaging way to generate energy.

The pairing of the awe-inspiring "Goldberg Variations" and the surreal abstract aerial images of our destruction of nature thus creates a jarring juxtaposition.