musical theatre

Beautiful Trouble

Natacha Diels
JACK Quartet

6 to 26€
12€ with carte musica

Performances: Sat, 27 Sep 2025

19:00
Location: Maillon

petite salle

Duration: 1:10

In the form of a surreal TV series, American composer Natacha Diels stages the JACK Quartet in a work that lies halfway between chamber recital and music theatre.

Alongside Nicole Lizée, Kristine Tjøgersen, Golnaz Shariatzadeh, and Laura Bowler—all performing at this 43rd edition of Musica—Natacha Diels belongs to a generation of women composers who are redefining contemporary music, particularly through their skill in producing visuals for their pieces (video, animation, stage design). For the JACK Quartet, Natacha Diels has composed an unclassifiable piece, somewhere between chamber recital and musical theatre. Her dramaturgy takes the form of a TV series, but one that casts aside all conventions: the screen and stage action merge into one, lending a surrealness to the unfolding of the story and performance. The result is an enchanting show about humans as puppets, dystopia, the beauty of nightmares, unwavering love, child-like wonder, music (only music), protest (against war), loss, nature as a commodity (or not), the beauty of the incongruous (playful nonsense), long walks, wholeness.

Program

Beautiful Trouble (2024)

composition, electronic development, video Natacha Diels
costume design Maile Okamura
technical direction and sound Matthew Craig
lights Kent Sprague