“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
VENUE:
REDCAT THEATER
631 W 2ND ST, LOS ANGELES, CA 90012
I. Monday, January 12, 2026 | 8 PM
II. Tuesday, January 13, 2026 | 8 PM
VENUE:
REDCAT THEATER
631 W 2ND ST, LOS ANGELES, CA 90012
“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:
Tickets for this event are priced at $50 for GENERAL ADMISSION and $100 for PATRON SEATING.
PATRON SEATING guarantees centrally located seats in the hall for optimal viewing,
and your purchase also provides meaningful support toward the costs of production.
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 forty 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 forty 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
|
Sonia Wieder-Atherton is a renowned Franco-American cellist, renowned for her ability to transcend musical genres while bringing emotional depth to her interpretations.
Her artistic career has been marked by the exploration of a wide range of repertoires, from classical music to more contemporary and experimental works. As a soloist, she has played for the Orchestre de Paris, the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra, the Gulbenkian Orchestra among others. She regularly performs with artists such as with Imogen Cooper, Elisabeth Leonskaja or Sarah Rothenberg. She also initiates encounters with other artistic languages: the cinema of Chantal Akerman; literature through Shakespeare Bach with Charlotte Rampling; and, more recently, Carnets de là-bas featuring images by Clément Cogitore — a performance in which she recounts her years in the Soviet Union. Winner of several international awards, she continues to enrich the musical landscape with her innovative and moving interpretations, making her a key figure in modern classical music. Her latest recording is devoted to the Bach’s Suites for the label Outhere Music. |
© E Conley
SARAH ROTHENBERG
Sarah Rothenberg is a pianist, writer, and creator of interdisciplinary performances connecting music with visual art and literature. A pianist of “power and introspection” (New York Times) and “a prolific and creative thinker” (Wall Street Journal), her original productions include A Proust Sonata; The Blue Rider in Performance; Vienna 1900: In the Garden of Dreams; and two film-performances: The Departing Landscape and Door of No Return (featuring Sorey’s For Julius Eastman, composed for Rothenberg). Performances include Kennedy Center, Great Performers at Lincoln Center, Barbican Centre (London), the Concertgebouw (Amsterdam), Palais des Beaux-Arts (Brussels), the Gilmore Piano Festival, Big Ears Festival, 92nd Street Y, etc. A champion of new music and neglected repertoire of the past, she has performed over 85 premieres, and her recordings include the U.S. premieres of Fanny Mendelssohn’s Das Jahr; her rediscoveries of Roslavetz, Lourié, Mosolov; Shadows and Fragments: Brahms and Schoenberg; as well as works of Messiaen, Satie, Feldman, Cage, Carter, Wuorinen, Picker, Tsontakis; with an upcoming solo release of In Darkness and Light: Vijay Iyer-Beethoven-Feldman. Her writings appear in numerous literary journals, The Musical Quarterly, and monographs on the painters Cy Twombly and Rackstraw Downes. She received the French medal of Chevalier des Arts et des Lettres in 2000. Sarah Rothenberg is artistic director of DACAMERA. She lives in Houston and New York.