The theme of the 53rd concert season

Careful, here's someone in the flow!

Like a child at play, certain exercises can transport us into a state where we forget everything around us. We become completely absorbed in an activity – we become one with it – and can lose ourselves in the smallest details and overcome extreme challenges. We experience an immense mental effortlessness and can thus perform actions seemingly without resistance. We are in the flow.

When playing or listening to music, we can also get into a flow state. Those who succeed in doing so experience supreme satisfaction. We identify with the emotions and states captured in music – then we don't just play and listen to them, we feel and experience them. When hands perform unimaginable feats on the keyboard and the head seems to follow the muscles, when music groups bundle their motion energy, when we immerse ourselves completely in a musical work while listening – then we are in flow.

Following last year's festival theme of «Rituals», «Flow» is a logical next step, because ritualisation enables the flow state. Rituals are actions under strict control. Flow is the free-spirited flip side of ritual and means letting go of this control. In the Musikdorf Ernen, we want to spend a season focusing on this core aspect of our beloved activity – the intense, moving and enriching experience of music.

In the 53rd concert season «Flow», we also discover music that is connected with many things that flow. Water, energy, air and time, of course, but also cash, thoughts and drinks.

Written by Jonathan Inniger, Intendant Festival Musikdorf Ernen