Musikakademie
Rheinsberg

In mid-March 2020, twenty-five members of the Bolivian Experimental Orchestra for Indigenous Instruments (OEIN), including their artistic director Carlos Gutiérrez (fellow 2018), came to Berlin to play the opening concert at MaerzMusik – Festival for Time Issues. This event was to be the highlight of a long-planned collaboration between the OEIN and the Berlin-based soloists’ ensemble PHØNIX16. Due to the spread of COVID-19, however, MaerzMusik 2020 was cancelled and shortly afterwards, Bolivia closed its borders and suspended all international flights. The beautiful surroundings of the Rheinsberg Music Academy, where OEIN and their German colleagues had been preparing for their upcoming performances, suddenly became a place of isolation and uncertainty. Financial support for this collaboration was provided by the DAAD funding program “Arts & Media.”

The Bolivian guests ended up having to stay in Rheinsberg for eleven weeks, and three members of PHØNIX16 stayed with them throughout. The musicians continued their intensive daily rehearsals and developed new pieces in an attempt to break the deadlock and counter the hopelessness of their situation. Thanks to the concerted efforts of the Federal Foreign Office and the project’s partner institutions (Berliner Festspiele, Goethe-Institut, HELLERAU, DAAD Artists-in-Berlin Program), as well as the team of PHØNIX16, the Bolivian musicians were finally able to fly home to their families and friends on June 1, 2020. Filmmaker Philipp Hartmann obtained permission from the public health office to record this exceptional situation as it unfolded; the resulting film, a moving documentary entitled Aus den 84 Tagen, was co-produced by Ultima Festival (Oslo) and the DAAD Artists-in-Berlin Program.