Bamberg Diary #2 China

You can also scroll through “Bamberg Diary #1 Europa” here

“There is a big difference between a tour of Europe with the Bamberg Symphony and a trip to the most diverse corners of China: the mutual foreignness of both cultures makes it possible to experience how unifying music can be. For me as a photographer and chronicler of the orchestra, it was a unique pleasure to observe European musical culture clash with the culture of China, and to weave it together photographically.” – Andreas Herzau

For many years, renowned photographer Andreas Herzau has accompanied the orchestra on its journeys around the world. Herzau and the orchestra have grown ever closer over the years, building a trusted relationship that means their concert photography is far beyond the expected or traditional.

In 2019, Herzau accompanied the orchestra on its tour across China and taken photos that have become the core of this photographic documentary series. Andreas Herzau has captured the essence of places, concert halls and people, whilst always putting the orchestra at the centre of his work and the series he is creating. In doing so, he has taken on a paradoxical task: Photographing music. The performance, the passion, and the emotion not just of the orchestra, but of the audience, allows us to witness the reception of music in different cultures.

The Bamberg Diary #2 takes a closer look at present-day China, which is so close and yet so far from the European homestead of the orchestra. The result is a book that shows very different views of the country, as well as the orchestra: from magical, intimate moments to the grand gestures of a musical cultural exchange, a story is told from a new perspective.Musicians, audiences and places are all presented together, accompanied by essays from Xuewu Gu, Jiatong Wu and Holger Noltze to complement the music and the photography. This photographic diary is a completely unique and unusual approach to capture the moments when art becomes alive in a myriad of different ways, all at once.

Bamberg Diary #2
German / English
Andreas Herzau (Photography)
Holger Noltze (Editor)
Text by: Marcus Rudolf Axt, Xuewu Gu, Holger Noltze und Jiatong Wu
160 pages, 90 photographs
ISBN: 978-3-03850-081-0
Nimbusbooks. Kunst und Bücher (CH), 2021
EUR 25.00 | CHF 28.00