Opening Night Timber by Michael Gordon – six performers in a circle. Wood. Pulse. The Wooden Hall becomes a resonant space and sets the tone for the festival.
With the Opening Night, überschlag 2026 establishes its focus: away from the digital, toward the physical, the tangible, the essential. Michael Gordon’s Timber serves as the starting point for this.
Six performers create a dense interweaving of pulse, resonance, and minimal shifts on tuned wooden planks. What emerges is less a concert than a state of being: rhythmic, hypnotic, physical. The work is performed by the host ensemble Rummsfeld—the percussionists of the Hanover State Opera—together with musical friends.
The Wooden Hall itself becomes an instrument. Wood meets wood, sound meets architecture. The audience moves through the space, not listening from the outside, but finding themselves right in the middle of the action—within a vibrating sound body.
Timber reduces everything to the essentials: material, movement, time. That is precisely where its power lies. An archaic opening that makes the festival theme immediately tangible.
Program
Michael Gordon Timber
A piece for six percussionists on wooden beams
Lineup
Rummsfeld Percussion & Friends Percussionists of the Lower Saxony State Orchestra in Hanover
Sascha Zauner Light Design
Moritz Wappler Concept and production design