It was a film encounter during a night flight from Berlin to New York in the summer of 2013. Jim Jarmusch would not have scripted it better: at the time of shipment, an already veteran actor gives a touch to the viconchelista who queues in front of him with his voluminous instrument. “He asked me how I planned to fix them with such a big case in the cabin,” says Jan Vogler (Berlin, 61 years) by videoconference from Dresde. “I will hug him with all my strength,” he replied, and broke up. The conversation continued inside the plane “we only separated a corridor and we had a good handful of hours ahead,” Bill Murray intervenes (Evanston, Illinois, 74 years old) from another screen, at his home in Snedens Landing (New York). “So we start sharing all kinds of confidences about filming and concerts …”
Thus, 11,000 meters high, the friendship between two strangers was born. “Something had to do with the good initial tuning,” says the German musician, “but above all our excellent teamwork.” It refers to the moment of the flight in which a passenger suffered a panic attack that the crew did not know how to manage properly. Vogler tried to calm her, Murray just occurred to him to scream: “Ice cream, bring ice cream!” For some reason that resulted and the commander ended up congratulating them for their feat. “We celebrate it as a great victory,” emphasizes the actor. As soon as the phones were exchanged and, within a few weeks, Murray sent his new colleague of the Upper West Side a mysterious text message: “See you in Manhattan’s access to the Brooklyn bridge, at 5 in the afternoon, if you have time.”
Vogler went to the event in sportswear without knowing very well what to stick to. “Until that day I had never heard of the poetic walks about the East River, but Bill seemed to be very clear about what he was doing,” the cellist was sincere. During the walk, Murray recited poems from Walt Whitman with so much passion that he didn’t even flinch when the pedestrians stopped to take pictures. “It was a moment of absolute connection,” confesses the musician. “Then we understood that we should do something together.” The project was taking shape in the course of several dinners at Murray’s house, with its endless intermences around the great masters of music and literature. “Bill’s library is impressive. He has everything one needs, from Shakespeare to Kierkegaard, to get to understand the world we live in.”
And that is precisely the motor idea of New Worldsa show of “intellectual varieties”, they chant almost in unison, which brings them on a tour of Spain with an unusual combination of classical music, literature and theater. He tour It will start this Friday, June 13 at the Nuevo Apollo Theater in Madrid and is part of the Veanos del Taoro Festival. Then they will visit the Alfredo Kraus de Las Palmas Auditorium (day 15), the Tenife Drawing Park (17) and the Arriaga Theater in Bilbao (19), before saying goodbye in the high in the Grande room of the Liceu in Barcelona (21). “Spain has something very special, I don’t know if it’s the light, language or the way people look at you,” Murray sighs. “All that allows you to show you a bit more vulnerable on stage.” Vogler stirns his head: “It is a very living and enthusiastic audience.” Just in case, the work will have envelopes in Spanish.
The show’s recipe is apparently simple: while Murray puts voice to texts from Twain, Hemingway and Whitman himself, Vogler interprets works by Bach, Schubert or Bernstein with the violinist Mira Wang and the pianist Vanessa Pérez. “We do not touch as mere accompaniment,” admits the cellist. “Each note has to sustain the story, the rhythm of the text, breathing …” The repertoire did not have closed when Murray had a “mystical experience” during a car trip through the California desert, Palm Springs’s way. “That winter had rained a lot and I suddenly found in an oasis of purple flowers as I had not seen in my life,” he recalls. “In the background it sounded When Will I Ever Learn to Live in God?by Van Morrison, and I called our arranger to put this issue as soon as possible. ”
Faithful to the initial catharsis they experienced in Brooklyn, New Worlds It works as a cultural bridge between America and Europe. “Missing understanding, capacity for dialogue and empathy in modern democracies,” reflects the cellist. Hence, many of the chosen texts revolve around the loss, fragility of frustrated identities and dreams. “Yeah, New Worlds It also serves as a metaphor of what my country was, is and hopefully it can be again, “Murray acknowledges.” I think the great break began with the Vietnam War. Then came the lie of Iraq and the signaling of the antipatriots, and so on until today. “As for Trump, he prefers or naming it.” In 1976 the United States Bicentennial was an event. Next year will be the 250th anniversary and, really, I don’t know how mood we will get to the party … ”.
The actor does not take long to recover his usual composure, that of that humor so his that he travels between irreverence and melancholy, always to the limit of the absurdity, to talk about the relationship between the classics on both sides of the Atlantic: would they have taken Bach and Hemingway well to have attended class together? “Something tells me yes, because beyond the wig of the first and the struggle appearance of the second, they had a common thing: they did not waste a single word or note, which is why everything they wrote continues to keep the essence of the authentic.” To which Vogler, who nods on the other side, adds: “Greatness recognizes greatness. I do not speak only of talent, but about the ability to generate a change. Bach and Hemingway belong to that category. And that is why their works can help us today to recover lost friendships.”
Murray is not a professional musician, but knows how In time. Now you will have to see them with the stradivarius of Vogler in a Cabaré format between cult and casual. “The best thing to work with Bill is that it always surprises you,” says Vogler. “Proposes, invents, creates …” So much spontaneity has its risks and can lead to situations like the one that suspended the filming of Being Mortal Three years ago. “I was trying to keep the mood of the set,” Murray justifies, “but someone understood it differently.” In that filming, the actor reached an extrajudicial agreement and paid $ 100,000 to a production assistant who accused him of “unseeled touching.”
Last year, in your movie Friend The co -star was a great Danish Arlequín. “It is important to choose the companies well,” collects the glove. “That’s why now I dedicate myself to adopt real human friends. “His grimace on the screen has no waste.” Yes, here the dog is me … “, accepts Vogler with a loud laugh.