The Alonetimes guides six extraordinary performers through a web of memories, times and parallel worlds: a druid by a fire made of broken iPads, two boys at a piano just before a meteorite impact, the voice of a lost love on a walkie-talkie. Scenes like found objects from personal history. For this project, two fascinating and very different composers come together: Jennifer Walshe and Philip Venables explore loneliness in their new music theatre piece – sharpened by constant digital presence, intensified by pandemic and crisis. The soloists appear as fragile time travellers, a “broken consort” that only finds resonance in togetherness. In music, language and movement, they unearth buried stories – comical, painful, tender. A piece about letting go of old burdens and the realisation that loneliness can only be overcome together. Walshe and Venables combine their passion for collage, voice and direct, open musical theatre. Personal experiences are woven into a vibrant network in which no one exists without the others. From broken bonds and buried memories, a new form of community emerges.

A production of the Festival Musica Strasbourg with the support of the Fondation Cartier pour l’art contemporain in co-production with Deutsche Oper Berlin, BOZAR Brussels, Muziekgebouw aan ’t IJ Amsterdam, Schwarzman Centre for the Humanities Oxford, New Music Dublin, Music Biennale Zagreb, La Muse en Circuit Alfortville

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