The spectrum of power – a multidisciplinary workshop

Participants in Salzburg (Photo credits: Roche)

“As in previous years, Roche will bring together 100 top-talented students from European institutions to challenge the boundaries of their thinking around science, art and innovation – and the intersection of these topics. Students will engage with renowned scientists and artists, be exposed to provocative research and contemporary music, and participate in workshops exploring creativity.”

With this introduction, the DKFZ Graduate School asked PhD Students to apply for Roche Continents, a one-week workshop for both artists and scientists, taking place in Salzburg during the famous Salzburg Festival. Being very interested in science and music myself I applied and finally was selected to be one of 100 participants. However, I wasn’t really sure what to expect in Salzburg…

Welcoming session (Photo credits: Roche)

It turned out to be a fantastic week full of inspiration, creativity, great concerts, a diverse program and many interesting people. 100 students from 35 countries and from over 80 different institutions participated in the workshop, mostly PhD students, but also a few Bachelor or Master students. It was a great mixture of chemists, biologists, physicists, physicians on the one hand, and musicians, musicologists and other artists on the other hand – a diverse combination the workshop profited a lot of.

Tai-Chi lessons (Photo credits: Roche)

The program during the workshop was very diverse and challenging, not only because of the topics and tasks, but also because of the density of the program itself. All participants got a printed program for the week, which roughly gave an overview on the different activities. Many of them stayed a miracle, until they started… “Mindful morning” turned out to be Tai-Chi lessons taking place every morning, “Inspiration” were short lecture sessions, were interdisciplinary arts-science-connecting research projects were introduced, “Imagine” hid very creative and challenging group works, were small mixed groups should elaborate on a given topic in order to give a 5-minute performance afterwards. No rules, no clear tasks – just creativity. Oh yes, and “Late-night-reflections” presented themselves to be great food and drinks in a cozy atmosphere when having returned from concerts from the Salzburg Festival at light night. Indeed the late-night reflections caused short night afterwards…

Dressed-up at Salzburg Festival (Photo credits: Roche)

On four evenings, we dressed up and went to impressive concerts and operas in context of the Salzburg Festival. It started with a contemporary Orchestra concert with pieces from Griesey, followed by the great staged opera Wozzeck from Alban Berg and a chamber concert with pieces from Schumann, Schostakovich and Mahler. My musical highlight was the wonderful performance of the Reimann Opera “Lear” in the Felsenreitschule, a truely impressive performance, which we all talked about for a long time afterwards. Before each concert, we got interesting introductions from musicians, conductors and festival board members. They were both interesting and helpful to understand the performances and gave as useful background on the pieces of music.

Percussion workshop (Photo credits: Roche)

We also had a great percussion workshop, with a djembe for everyone (so in total 100 drums playing at the same time. Indeed quite loud but a lot of fun!), and regularly workshops took place with the contemporary composer Fritz Hauser who composed a contemporary piece of music together with all of us and which we performed in the end all together in a small concert. The piece was called “Blind trust”, as the audience were all blind-folder, while we, as the 100 performing musicians, were moving in a prepared performance through the entire room, scratching with sticks, wood blocks, cow bells and Guiros, sometimes strongly, sometimes softly, creating different sound atmospheres. Great experience!

Jam session (Photo credits: Roche)

What else happened? Oh, there was an interactive photographer workshop, there was a power slam, a jam session, a back-stage tour at the Salzburg opera houses, a gala dinner at the last evening with a subsequent party… and many other inspiring events…
It was just a most wonderful time and I strongly recommend everybody interested in science and contemporary music to apply for Roche Continents next year! You’ll try out thing you never did before, you’ll be surrounded by encouraging people and you will just have a great time!

Kai Dolde

 

 

One of the cozy dinners (Photo credits: Roche)
Blind trust – concert performance (Photo credits: Roche)
Group picture of all participants (Photo credits: Roche)
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