Orchestra of the LUCERNE FESTIVAL ACADEMY | Lin Liao | David Fulmer | Jamil Attar | Emmanuelle Grach | Winnie Huang | Diego Vásquez

“The new function of music must be a religious one,” declared Karlheinz Stockhausen in his early years. Yet it was not until the 1970s, intensified through his encounter with East Asia and Zen Buddhism, that the spiritual orientation of his creative work clearly manifested itself … and unsettled Stockhausen’s avant-garde colleagues, who were completely fixated on the political dimension of art. In INORI (the title is Japanese and means “prayer, invocation”), two dance-mimes are enthroned high above the 89-member orchestra on a scaffold. From there they highlight the music with prayer gestures that Stockhausen borrowed from different religions and for which he developed his own notation. But to rehearse these ritualistic movement processes needs time. And so two young dancer couples have been preparing since last summer for both Lucerne performances, instructed by Alain Louafi and Kathinka Pasveer, who collaborated closely with Stockhausen himself.