Venue:Richard-Wagner-Hain
Leipzig
Live performance: 10 & 12 September 2026 Audio walk premiere: early April 2027
In the audio walk Chorus versus Monument, the audience is guided through the Richard Wagner Grove in Leipzig by a choir. It was there in 1934 that Reich Chancellor Adolf Hitler laid the foundation stone for a Richard Wagner monument that was never completed.
Through this audio walk, the artist Frederike Moormann explores, on the one hand, the historical layers of the grove – from the Weimar Republic through National Socialism and the GDR to the present day.
On the other hand, she engages with the musical work of Richard Wagner, whose own anti-Semitic writings, nationalist public appearances and musical themes resonated strongly with the ideologies of the Nazi regime.
Through an audio walk and a choral concert that deconstructs and samples Wagner’s musical motifs, the grove’s historical layers become accessible and Wagner’s nationalist themes audible in the music. Chor kontra Monument asks what it means to visit a place with this history, named after a controversial composer, today, and poses the question: What was built here, and for whom?
To mark the partial renovation of the eastern section of the Richard Wagner Grove, *Chor kontra Monument* will have its world premiere on 10 and 12 September 2026 as a live performance with wireless headphones. From April 2027, upon completion of the renovation and to mark the opening exhibition of the project series at the Richard Wagner Grove, and featuring further contributions by Maya Schweizer (Berlin) and the Kubik collective (Dresden/Leipzig/ Weimar), the audio walk is to be permanently accessible via a QR code on users’ own smartphones.
Chor kontra Monument is being created in collaboration with Nora Benamara, Maximilian Bischofberger, Felix Deufel, Chara Giannou, Helgard Haug, Hauptmeier | Recker, Julia Kurz, Lefteris Krysalis, Marie-Louise Monrad-Møller and Walburga Walde
About the artist: Frederike Moormann is a radio and sound artist. She lives and works in Leipzig and Weimar. Her site-specific practice combines archival research, vocal experiments and radio transmissions. The collaborative audio walk ‘Space has become a crowded place’ (Theater RAMPE, Project Room Namibia, Funkstation Nauen/Brandenburg Museum, Deutschlandfunk Kultur) explores colonial history, trauma and communication infrastructures. Her audio walk “Und gegenüber spielt die Blaskapelle” was awarded the Audiowalk Award in 2024. Since 2020, she has been an artistic collaborator at the Experimental Radio department of the Bauhaus University Weimar.
‘Chor kontra Monument’ marks the start of the ‘Kunst zum Richard-Wagner-Hain’ series, which is being realised in 2027 by the ‘Stadtkuratorin Leipzig’ programme – the City of Leipzig’s programme for art in public spaces – and the Office for Urban Greenery and Waterways, in cooperation with Freiraumkonzepte landscape architects. The project is funded by Musikfonds e.V. and the City of Leipzig’s Department of Culture, and is supported by Hörspielsommer Leipzig.
