“D'EST EN MUSIQUE”
CHANTAL AKERMAN
SONIA WIEDER-ATHERTON | SARAH ROTHENBERG
West Coast premiere
PERFORMANCES:
I. Monday, January 12, 2026 | 8 PM
II. Tuesday, January 13, 2026 | 8 PM
Further details regarding venue to be announced at a later date.
Be sure that you are signed up for our mailing list to stay up to date when new information is announced.
I. Monday, January 12, 2026 | 8 PM
II. Tuesday, January 13, 2026 | 8 PM
Further details regarding venue to be announced at a later date.
Be sure that you are signed up for our mailing list to stay up to date when new information is announced.
“I am not interested in real time and also not in the dramatic and codified time
of cinema that manipulated duration. Let’s say I take ‘my time.’”
(Chantal Akerman)
of cinema that manipulated duration. Let’s say I take ‘my time.’”
(Chantal Akerman)
© Fondation Chantal Akerman
TICKETS:
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PROGRAM:
D'EST EN MUSIQUE
Chantal Akerman and Sonia Wieder-Atherton, conception
Music of Béla Bartók, Frédéric Chopin, Leoš Janáček, Bohuslav Martinů, Sergeï Prokofiev,
Sergei Rachmaninoff, Maurice Ravel, Alfred Schnittke and Boris Tchaïkovski
set to footage from Chantal Akerman's documentary D'Est (1993)
Duration: 80 minutes
PERFORMERS:
Sonia Wieder-Atherton, cello
Sarah Rothenberg, piano
PRODUCTION:
Philharmonie de Paris
In partnership with Chantal Akerman Foundation, Cinematek Brussels
2024 Premiere: Salle des Concerts Cité de la musique – Philharmonie de Paris
D'EST EN MUSIQUE
Chantal Akerman and Sonia Wieder-Atherton, conception
Music of Béla Bartók, Frédéric Chopin, Leoš Janáček, Bohuslav Martinů, Sergeï Prokofiev,
Sergei Rachmaninoff, Maurice Ravel, Alfred Schnittke and Boris Tchaïkovski
set to footage from Chantal Akerman's documentary D'Est (1993)
Duration: 80 minutes
PERFORMERS:
Sonia Wieder-Atherton, cello
Sarah Rothenberg, piano
PRODUCTION:
Philharmonie de Paris
In partnership with Chantal Akerman Foundation, Cinematek Brussels
2024 Premiere: Salle des Concerts Cité de la musique – Philharmonie de Paris
PROJECT DESCRIPTION:
“The exceptional shots in Chantal Akerman’s D’Est were what inspired me to work on this project. When watching the scenes on mute – later, Rachmaninoff and Schnittkes’ sonatas would perfectly harmonise with these images – I could see the music. I saw it transform cars driving through the snow into delicate ballerinas. I watched children sledding through the eyes of their parents. I saw it shield women picking potatoes in an open field and at the same time turn a building hidden behind trees at night into a terrifying vision. All of this, without ever revealing how it managed or what motivated it to do so. The movements merged: the images and the music met, stared at each other, listened to each other...” (Sonia Wieder-Atherton)
“Feelings arose the instant the white tulle screen fell abruptly in front of Sonia Wieder-Artherton. The ball began in one of Moscow’s grand hotels as they played Prokofiev’s Adagio. I thought to myself – a little puzzled – “This works!” Sonia had told me many times about this project, but I only half understood it. In that moment, however, everything became clear to me. The musicians’ two tiny silhouettes combined perfectly with those dancing in the foreground. It was as if the film had never existed without them – almost like the film, the dancers, and even the hotel had been waiting for Prokofiev’s music to burst out of their imagination. It was powerful. I immediately wanted to keep working with them, it couldn’t be helped.” (Chantal Akerman)
“Feelings arose the instant the white tulle screen fell abruptly in front of Sonia Wieder-Artherton. The ball began in one of Moscow’s grand hotels as they played Prokofiev’s Adagio. I thought to myself – a little puzzled – “This works!” Sonia had told me many times about this project, but I only half understood it. In that moment, however, everything became clear to me. The musicians’ two tiny silhouettes combined perfectly with those dancing in the foreground. It was as if the film had never existed without them – almost like the film, the dancers, and even the hotel had been waiting for Prokofiev’s music to burst out of their imagination. It was powerful. I immediately wanted to keep working with them, it couldn’t be helped.” (Chantal Akerman)
ARTIST BIOS:
CHANTAL AKERMAN
Chantal Akerman was born in Brussels on 6 June 1950. At the age of 15, she discovers Jean-Luc Godard’s Pierrot le Fou by chance, which inspired her to take up filmmaking. Entering the Brussels film school (INSAS) in 1967, she left straight away, rejecting the rigid framework of the school. The following year she made her first short film, Saute ma ville, first expression of a free and radical cinema. Akerman moved to New York in the early 1970s, where she discovered the experimental cinema of Jonas Mekas and Michael Snow, which had a profound influence on the films she made there (La Chambre, Hotel Monterey).
On her return to Belgium, she directed Je tu il elle and then raised the necessary funds to produce Jeanne Dielman, 23, quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles. This film about the daily life of a housewife, an essential piece of feminist cinema and presented at the Cannes Fortnight in 1975, brought her international recognition and remains a major cinematic experiment in the history of cinema, studied and admired for decades. In December 2022, the film was named the best film of all time by the British magazine Sight and Sound.
An indefatigable artist, Akerman traces her path freely, exploding narrative and geographical boundaries to wander between genres, tackling in turn fiction, documentary, musical comedy and literary adaptation.
Her filmography numbers some fourty films and has been widely shown and acclaimed throughout the world. Chantal Akerman is considered one of the most important and influential European directors of her generation, thanks to her modernity, her visionary treatment of images, time and space, and the reflections that run through her films (on identity, belonging, memory, feminism, gender and sexuality).
Alongside her films, Chantal Akerman has closely blended film and video creation, producing installations from 1995 onwards, exhibited all over the world in major art institutions. A close friend of the written word, she is also the author of several books.
Chantal Akerman passed away in 2015, but she remains an invaluable influence on filmmakers such as Gus Van Sant, Tsai Ming-Liang, Todd Haynes, Kelly Reichardt, Apichatpong Weerasethakul, Céline Sciamma and Alice Diop.
On her return to Belgium, she directed Je tu il elle and then raised the necessary funds to produce Jeanne Dielman, 23, quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles. This film about the daily life of a housewife, an essential piece of feminist cinema and presented at the Cannes Fortnight in 1975, brought her international recognition and remains a major cinematic experiment in the history of cinema, studied and admired for decades. In December 2022, the film was named the best film of all time by the British magazine Sight and Sound.
An indefatigable artist, Akerman traces her path freely, exploding narrative and geographical boundaries to wander between genres, tackling in turn fiction, documentary, musical comedy and literary adaptation.
Her filmography numbers some fourty films and has been widely shown and acclaimed throughout the world. Chantal Akerman is considered one of the most important and influential European directors of her generation, thanks to her modernity, her visionary treatment of images, time and space, and the reflections that run through her films (on identity, belonging, memory, feminism, gender and sexuality).
Alongside her films, Chantal Akerman has closely blended film and video creation, producing installations from 1995 onwards, exhibited all over the world in major art institutions. A close friend of the written word, she is also the author of several books.
Chantal Akerman passed away in 2015, but she remains an invaluable influence on filmmakers such as Gus Van Sant, Tsai Ming-Liang, Todd Haynes, Kelly Reichardt, Apichatpong Weerasethakul, Céline Sciamma and Alice Diop.
© Jean-Baptiste Mondino
SONIA WIEDER-ATHERTON
Born in San Francisco to a mother of Romanian origin and an American father, Sonia Wieder-Atherton was raised in New York and then in Paris. Early on, she attended the Paris Conservatory and studied under Maurice Gendron. When she turned 19, she made it across the Iron Curtain and studied with Natalia Shakhovskaya at the Tchaikovsky Moscow State Conservatory. Besides academic excellence, she developed a unique understanding of time and history. At 25, after returning to France, she received an honourable mention at the Mstislav Rostropovich International Cello Competition.
Sonia Wieder-Atherton collaborates with many contemporary composers such as Betsy Jolas, Pascal Dusapin, Francesco Filidei, Georges Aperghis, Wolfgang Rihm, Bernard Foccroule, and Edith Canat de Chizy, becoming their preferred performer. As a soloist, she has played for the Orchestre de Paris, the Orchestre National de France, the Belgian National Orchestra, the Liège Royal Philharmonic, the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra, the Gulbenkian Orchestra, the Luxembourg Philharmonic, the NDR Radiophilharmonie, the Remix Ensemble, Les Siècles, and Asko|Schönberg. She plays chamber music with Imogen Cooper, Elisabeth Leonskaja, Raphaël Oleg, Alexander Paley, and Bruno Fontaine among others.
Remarkable picks from her discography include Jewish Songs, a cycle for cello and piano inspired by the art of the chazanim; Chants d’Est, for cello and instrumental ensemble, imagined as a journey from Russia to Central Europe; Vita – Monteverdi Scelsi, for solo cello and cello trio, paints the life story of Angioletta-Angel through the music of two timeless geniuses, Monteverdi and Scelsi; Odyssey for Cello and Imaginary Choir is a series of adventures where a woman and her cello face the chaos of the storm, the wind, and the waves; Cadenza, or the dreams of Luigi Boccherini; Little Girl Blue, a tribute to Nina Simone.
A multifaceted world and a plurality of voices characterise the projects Wieder-Atherton creates and stages. One such project is D’Est en musique, a performance created with footage from Chantal Akerman’s film From the East. Night Dances with Charlotte Rampling is a literary and melodic symposium where Benjamin Britten meets Sylvia Plath. Shakespeare Bach, also with Charlotte Rampling, features Shakespeare’s sonnets, Bach’s suites, and Monteverdi’s madrigals. Other projects include Navire Night by Marguerite Duras with Fanny Ardant, and Exil created for cello, piano, and eight voices. Carnets de là-bas, a performance combining text, music and pictures, created with Clément Cogitore.
She has joined forces with Shantala Shivalingappa, André Markowicz and Jacques Higelin on diverse projects. In 2011, she received the Bernheim Foundation Award and in 2020, she was named Officier de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres. She performed at the 2018 ceremonial reburial of Simone Veil at the Pantheon in Paris, and signed a partnership agreement with the Alpha Classics record label in 2020.
Sonia Wieder-Atherton collaborates with many contemporary composers such as Betsy Jolas, Pascal Dusapin, Francesco Filidei, Georges Aperghis, Wolfgang Rihm, Bernard Foccroule, and Edith Canat de Chizy, becoming their preferred performer. As a soloist, she has played for the Orchestre de Paris, the Orchestre National de France, the Belgian National Orchestra, the Liège Royal Philharmonic, the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra, the Gulbenkian Orchestra, the Luxembourg Philharmonic, the NDR Radiophilharmonie, the Remix Ensemble, Les Siècles, and Asko|Schönberg. She plays chamber music with Imogen Cooper, Elisabeth Leonskaja, Raphaël Oleg, Alexander Paley, and Bruno Fontaine among others.
Remarkable picks from her discography include Jewish Songs, a cycle for cello and piano inspired by the art of the chazanim; Chants d’Est, for cello and instrumental ensemble, imagined as a journey from Russia to Central Europe; Vita – Monteverdi Scelsi, for solo cello and cello trio, paints the life story of Angioletta-Angel through the music of two timeless geniuses, Monteverdi and Scelsi; Odyssey for Cello and Imaginary Choir is a series of adventures where a woman and her cello face the chaos of the storm, the wind, and the waves; Cadenza, or the dreams of Luigi Boccherini; Little Girl Blue, a tribute to Nina Simone.
A multifaceted world and a plurality of voices characterise the projects Wieder-Atherton creates and stages. One such project is D’Est en musique, a performance created with footage from Chantal Akerman’s film From the East. Night Dances with Charlotte Rampling is a literary and melodic symposium where Benjamin Britten meets Sylvia Plath. Shakespeare Bach, also with Charlotte Rampling, features Shakespeare’s sonnets, Bach’s suites, and Monteverdi’s madrigals. Other projects include Navire Night by Marguerite Duras with Fanny Ardant, and Exil created for cello, piano, and eight voices. Carnets de là-bas, a performance combining text, music and pictures, created with Clément Cogitore.
She has joined forces with Shantala Shivalingappa, André Markowicz and Jacques Higelin on diverse projects. In 2011, she received the Bernheim Foundation Award and in 2020, she was named Officier de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres. She performed at the 2018 ceremonial reburial of Simone Veil at the Pantheon in Paris, and signed a partnership agreement with the Alpha Classics record label in 2020.
© E Conley
SARAH ROTHENBURG
Described as a "prolific and creative thinker" by the Wall Street Journal and a pianist of "power and introspection" by the New York Times, Sarah Rothenberg has an eclectic and unique career as a concert pianist, a writer, a producer and a creator of cross-disciplinary works of art where music, images, writing and ideas meet. Rothenberg’s musical and theatrical productions like Moondrunk, which inaugurated Lincoln Center’s New Visions series in New York, A Proust Sonata, which premiered at L’Alliance New York (formerly French Institute Alliance Française), and In the Garden of Dreams (Brahms, Schoenberg, Freud and Klimt) have explored the depth of unexpected encounters.
As a solo pianist she has performed at the Kennedy Center (Washington, D.C.), Great Performers at Lincoln Center (New York), the Barbican Centre (London), the Concertgebouw (Amsterdam), the Palais des Beaux-Arts (Brussels), the Van Cliburn Foundation, the Gilmore Piano Festival, 92nd Street Y (New York), and at festivals and concert series across the United States. Sarah Rothenberg’s musical exploration gave rise to a series of premiere performances and recordings of Das Jahr (Fanny Mendelssohn); Rediscovering the Russian Avant-Garde: Lourié, Mosolov and Roslavetz (GM); and Shadows & Fragments: Brahms and Schoenberg Piano Works. Additional acclaimed recordings include Messiaen: Visions de l’Amen (with Marilyn Nonken), Feldman/Satie/Cage: Rothko Chapel released on the ECM label, and the works of Wuorinen, Carter, Perle, Picker, Ran, Tower, and Tsontakis in collaboration with the composers. She has also recently performed works by Vijay Iyer and Tyshawn Sorey.
Rothenberg’s essays on art, music and culture have been published in top literary and musicology journals in the United States, the United Kingdom, and the Netherlands. She co-founded the famous Bard Music Festival and, in 1994, she became the artistic director of DACAMERA in Houston, Texas. Thanks to her creative impetus, DACAMERA has attracted international recognition for their avant-garde chamber music and jazz programming, promoting many contemporary composers and their works. In a recent tour de force, Rothenberg gave nine performances of Tyshawn Sorey’s Monochromatic Light (Afterlife) – with staging by director Peter Sellars at the Park Avenue Armory (New York) – and played her interpretation of Beethoven’s final piano sonatas at the Rothko Chapel in Houston, celebrating the composer’s birthday. After graduating from The Curtis Institute of Music, she went to Paris to study the music of Olivier Messiaen with Yvonne Loriod. This began an enduring passion for French culture, epitomised by being awarded the medal of Chevalier de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres by the French government in 1999.
As a solo pianist she has performed at the Kennedy Center (Washington, D.C.), Great Performers at Lincoln Center (New York), the Barbican Centre (London), the Concertgebouw (Amsterdam), the Palais des Beaux-Arts (Brussels), the Van Cliburn Foundation, the Gilmore Piano Festival, 92nd Street Y (New York), and at festivals and concert series across the United States. Sarah Rothenberg’s musical exploration gave rise to a series of premiere performances and recordings of Das Jahr (Fanny Mendelssohn); Rediscovering the Russian Avant-Garde: Lourié, Mosolov and Roslavetz (GM); and Shadows & Fragments: Brahms and Schoenberg Piano Works. Additional acclaimed recordings include Messiaen: Visions de l’Amen (with Marilyn Nonken), Feldman/Satie/Cage: Rothko Chapel released on the ECM label, and the works of Wuorinen, Carter, Perle, Picker, Ran, Tower, and Tsontakis in collaboration with the composers. She has also recently performed works by Vijay Iyer and Tyshawn Sorey.
Rothenberg’s essays on art, music and culture have been published in top literary and musicology journals in the United States, the United Kingdom, and the Netherlands. She co-founded the famous Bard Music Festival and, in 1994, she became the artistic director of DACAMERA in Houston, Texas. Thanks to her creative impetus, DACAMERA has attracted international recognition for their avant-garde chamber music and jazz programming, promoting many contemporary composers and their works. In a recent tour de force, Rothenberg gave nine performances of Tyshawn Sorey’s Monochromatic Light (Afterlife) – with staging by director Peter Sellars at the Park Avenue Armory (New York) – and played her interpretation of Beethoven’s final piano sonatas at the Rothko Chapel in Houston, celebrating the composer’s birthday. After graduating from The Curtis Institute of Music, she went to Paris to study the music of Olivier Messiaen with Yvonne Loriod. This began an enduring passion for French culture, epitomised by being awarded the medal of Chevalier de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres by the French government in 1999.