HOFgesang (Court minstrelsy) – encounter and sharing (PDF)
Diverse – moving – mind-e x p a n d i n g
An attempt to recover the abused courtyards for the residents by choral power
In May 2006 the rear side of the city of Zurich resounded with a large variety of choral singing: during four weeks as many as sixty choirs sang in nearly a hundred backyards. By making the backyards of the city resound, this memorable event raises the question about the significance that is attributed to these valuable urban spaces. More than 1700 singers performed in order to promote the backyards as places for lively interactions among neighbours. The city’s wide-ranging choral culture – choirs representing all styles and generations – took a stand for a shared concern in a way previously unheard of.
What started the movement?
The rear side of the city is largely unknown. Even though courtyards and backyards take
up as much as one fourth of the city’s space, hardly anyone pays attention to them. As
late as the 1950s, these spaces were widely used by small-scale industries, or to grow
vegetables, to dry laundry or beat carpets. They were work places and thus also places
where people met and interacted with each other. Children watched these proceedings,
participated in the work or found corners to play in.
Since then, most of these backyards have either been turned into parking space or have
otherwise been rendered unsuitable for community purposes. In consequence, the
increasingly multicultural residents who live around these courtyards have been deprived
of spaces in which good relations among neighbours can develop. This loss not only
reduces the quality of living, it also endangers a peaceful coexistence. People who are
forced to know their neighbour’s favorite TV-program and who witness each flushing of
the neighbor’s toilet, but who never meet and thus never get to know each other, are
unlikely to have much sympathy for each other. Conflicts are not far away.
It is therefore all the more surprising that the quality and the changing function of these
semi-public spaces has so far scarcely been noticed by politicians and city planners in
Switzerland. In this situation, HOF gesang recommends a root treatment: the recovery of
purpose-alienated courtyards as habitats.
And how is this to happen?
HOF gesang will hardly invalidate the market laws, which invite to abuse the courtyards
as a source of extra profit. And it is obviously more profitable to take the 25'000 Euros
per annum for ten parking lots then to use that space to grow flowers or let children
play on a sand heap. All the same, the singers want to make people think and start an
initiative to convert these places back into spaces in which people meet. HOF gesang
invites all parties concerned to a dialogue, with the support of city authorities.
Tenants and landlords are encouraged to work together to find ways to turn these bleak
spaces into playgrounds, recreational areas, dream spaces, gardens – or at least to take
a first step towards realizing such an objective.
To trigger a movement, the singers take an obvious approach: they move around. In this
way, choral singing is brought to everybody, including people who don’t usually attend
concerts: to their balconies and kitchen windows. Especially children and youngsters who
do not live in ideal housing conditions experience a singing culture live – on this side of
the TV screen. This may make them realize that singing can be a liberating experience
and an experience that has the power to unite people. The choirs fight against social
isolation and disintegration. HOF gesang wants to offer this as a contribution to
neighbourhood development with the aim of mediating between different cultures.
To the choirs themselves HOF gesang offers an opportunity to introduce themselves to
different neighbourhoods and audiences. Personal contact between members of the
audience and singers is easily established in these backyards and offers the choirs a
chance to recruit new talent.
But who is HOFgesang?
HOF gesang is an organization set up by private initiative. It is supported by the Hofgesang-
society consisting of persons engaged in the cultural sector and other socially
active people who believe in the mind broadening power of music. They choose choral
singing to make people aware of the social significance of backyards. Primarily, however,
HOF gesang consists of the singers who share in this activity.
The organization is under the patronage of the city of Zurich and is actively supported by
eminent figures from different fields, among which music, education as well as city development.
And what is the future?
Since 2006, over three hundred backyards resounded with the voices of well over seven
thousand singers in the cities of Zurich, Berne, Schaffhausen, as well as in the Bavarian
city of Landshut.
HOF gesang is performing in Zurich every second year, again in may 2014. We hope that
choirs in other parts of the country and abroad will join in, for every city would benefit
from its lifeless backyards to get enchanted by choral music
Andreas Diethelm
17.10.2012
HOFgesang
Badenerstr. 18
8004 Zürich
www.facebook.com/HOFgesang
www.youtube.com/HOFgesang
Telefon +41 43 317 1968
Mobile +41 79 224 55 23
www.hofgesang.ch
– signpost to the mobile choral singing
– window on the inviting and bleak backyards