TEAR DOWN THIS WALL! concert is denied permission to perform on the American side of the border in San Diego. The concert will go ahead regardless.
22. May 2017
US authorities have refused permission for the Dresdner Sinfoniker’s project TEAR DOWN THIS WALL! On 3 June, the ensemble wanted to take a collective and artistic stand against the global rise of isolationism, fanaticism and nationalism, epitomized by President Donald Trump’s intention to build a wall along the US-Mexico border. The planned cross-border interaction, featuring the Dresdner Sinfoniker alongside American and Mexican musicians on either side, is therefore suspended. The free concert will now take place exclusively on the Mexican side of the border, between 11 am and 4 pm on 3 June 2017.
The Dresdner Sinfoniker’s show in Tijuana/San Diego, with the support of Amnesty International Mexico, was meant to create a musical bridge for freedom and the understanding between peoples. Although the cross-border interplay has been suspended by the US authorities, the concert in Tijuana’s Parque del Mar, on the US border, will still send a powerful signal against the walls in people’s minds.
Now more than ever! The Dresdner Sinfoniker are particularly calling on American artists, musicians and like-minded people to get involved that day with their own performances or flash mobs along the 2000 mile-long border. The authorities’ denial only concerns the Dresdner Sinfoniker’s concert in Friendship Park/San Diego. Everyone is invited to participate and to share videos of their own initiatives or projects using the hashtag #teardownthiswall.
Invitation to all musicians and artists here.
The concert on 3 June will feature world premieres of Wieland Reissmann’s ballad «Beyond» and the guided improvisation «The Big, The Bug, The Cricket & The Quack» by Harald Thiemann, for which the Dresdner Sinfoniker, with the help from Mexican and American percussionists, will transform the wall into an instrument. Other guests include the youth orchestra Sinfonia Juvenil from Tijuana, the band Tijuana No!, the pop singer Ceci Bastida, the Guatemalan Maya singer Sara Curruchich and the Jazz singer Coral MacFarland.
TEAR DOWN THIS WALL! is financed through a Kickstarter campaign, with backers from over 40 countries.
For years the spectacular projects of Dresdner Sinfoniker have combined music with socio-political issues. In 2016 they created international headlines with their German-Turkish-Armenian concert aghet – ağıt, a project in commemoration of the Armenian genocide. They performed alongside the Pet Shop Boys on high-rise balconies and commissioned a symphonic version of Rammstein’s music. The orchestra knows what civil courage and free thinking can achieve: most members witnessed the German reunification first hand. In 1989, their artistic director and cofounder Markus Rindt fled East Germany, using the German embassy in Prague as a passage to freedom. These experiences have galvanized the Dresdner Sinfoniker to stand up for freedom and humanity. With TEAR DOWN THIS WALL! they seek to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with other artists and, like the citizens of East Germany during the peaceful revolution, to tear down existing walls and prevent new ones from being built.
