My Own Private Bayreuth

CD My Own Private Bayreuth. – HotelMariaKapel, 2011

Arturas Bumšteinas started his project My Own Private Bayreuth in May, 2010, at the Kunstvlaal art fair in Amsterdam (where he represented the artists’ house HotelMariaKapel). He came up to this idea after an unsuccessful attempt to acquire tickets to the Bayreuth Festival. According to the official answer from the festival organizers, he will have a chance to get there after nine years only. Shockingly surprised by such cultural super-elitism, the composer devised hot to use these remainding nine years in a creative way. Hence this project was an attempt to create an alternative, own Bayreuth in a tiny space of few square meters - an improvised recording studio. During the week of the fair, he met different musicians and recorded them playing fragments of Wagner’s works. Thus an archive of Wagner’s interpretations was built, to serve as a material for this ultimate finished version.

Linas Paulauskis