Akoka | Berlin, DE

Olivier Messiaen’s “Quartet for the End of Time,” written in a German prisoner-of-war camp in 1940, is reframed from a contemporary perspective in AKOKA, a program created by David Krakauer and Matt Haimovitz. Named after Henri Akoka, the Jewish clarinetist who performed in the work’s premiere, the concert frames Messiaen’s transcendent masterpiece with Krakauer’s eponymous, quasi-improvisatory work and a new electronic composition by producer, beat architect, and klezmer/Yiddish music artist Socalled. Pianist Kathleen Tagg, most recently heard at the Pierre Boulez Saal together with Krakauer in the audiovisual production Breath & Hammer, and Johnny Gandelsman, violinist of the New York-based string quartet Brooklyn Rider, complete the ensemble.