Projects
SONGS FOR THE END OF THE WORLD
“All the time while rowing we were facing the starboard side of the sinking vessel. By that time, E & C decks were completely submerged, and the strains of music became fainter, as though the instruments were filling up with water…”
— Margaret Brown, recounting her experience in lifeboat No. 6
“Those that were in the lifeboats which were close to the vessel say that the orchestra played till the very last and that the men went down into the sea singing ‘Nearer My God to Thee’.”
— Caroline Bonnell, survivor
Disasters fascinate us. They draw us in and confront us with our own fragility, reminding us of our mortality. On the night of April 14–15, 1912, the RMS Titanic collided with an iceberg. According to accounts, the ship’s band continued to play until the very end. All the musicians perished.
Perhaps the Titanic disaster is so captivating because, as one account suggests, “there are not many stories in which people who are neither ill nor caught in a conflict are suddenly forced to contemplate their imminent death within just a few hours.” Immediately after the catastrophe, the musicians were hailed as heroes, and to this day, legends surround them. Conflicting testimonies from survivors have led to ongoing speculation about the last song they played.
“SONGS FOR THE END OF THE WORLD” is a headphone concert that takes inspiration from the enduring fascination with the Titanic disaster and the myths surrounding its musicians. The piece experiments with the format of an immersive podcast, exploring how disasters are processed musically and in popular culture. How is music used as a means of survival and emotional coping?
Blending elements of a traditional podcast—such as interviews and discussions—with concert-like segments, musical rituals, and audience interaction, “SONGS FOR THE END OF THE WORLD” delves into the role of music in dark and uncertain times. The performance is both intimate and sincere, yet infused with humor, offering a reflective exploration of music’s significance in moments of crisis.
The piece invites us to consider what music we would turn to in moments of fear and uncertainty—and what that music means to us on a personal level. Through interactive moments, the headphone concert repeatedly poses the question:
What connects us to the music that accompanies us near the end? What memories are tied to it, what does it mean to us, and what does our selection reveal about who we are?
To deepen this exploration, the audience’s personal music choices are incorporated into the flow of the concert itself.

Sara Glojnaric, composer
©Mateja Vrčković

Sarah Maria Sun, soprano ©Rüdiger Schestag
Kuss@Kokon
Kuss@Kokon was an initiative during the pandemic. We got together as a string quartet with friends and companions who are particularly important to our development, who have had a particular influence on us or who have surprised us. We locked ourselves away in studios with them for several days, and each of us brought our own art form to the table, and we then got to work together.
This means, for example, that we provided a Mendelssohn string quartet movement, played it and it was interrupted by percussion, slam poetry or choreography/ dance.
We didn’t illustrate this movement, but met each other with various disruptive factors or the exact opposite of disruption. That was so much fun and brought us to great ideas, of putting together different modules that we could later combine in concerts or events such as festivals, depending on what was needed.
That’s what I call modules: They are concert parts, show parts that can run simultaneously, on different levels such as inside/outside or consecutively or even spread out in a room — depending on the situation.
Instrumentation & works
Force and Freedom
A Beethoven project: for the 250th anniversary of the composer’s birth, Nico and the Navigators and the Kuss Quartet question the aesthetic and political constraints and freedoms in which Beethoven’s work was created.
“The audience alternately heard excerpts from Beethoven’s string quartets and adaptations of the composer’s song fragments … In combination with dance, songs and quotations, Beethoven’s string quartets appeared in a new light … The breathtaking movements of dancer Kawaguchi illustrated the ambivalence of emotions inherent in the music. In short intervals, despair, hope, lightness and melancholy alternated …
The crowning finale of the performance, the “Great Fugue” Opus 133, in which Beethoven repeatedly explodes the firmly established system of the fugue, was also fitting. The audience was enthusiastic.“
SEBASTIAN JUTISZ / RHEIN-NECKAR-ZEITUNG
More details and photos:
Force & Freedom
Instrumentation & works
Bas Böttcher – Slam Poetry
Yui Kawaguchi – choreography & dance
Ruben Reniers – dance
Johannes Fischer – percussion & composition
Óscar Escudero – Electronics
Kuss Quartett
Enno Poppe (*1969)
“Freizeit” for string quartet (2016), commissioned by the Kuss Quartett
Johann Sebastian Bach (1685–1750)
from: Partita No 2 D Minor for violin solo, BWV 1004 3. Sarabande
Manfred Trojahn (*1949)
from: V. Streichquartett (2018), commissioned by the Kuss Quartett
Molto Adagio
Johannes Julius Fischer (*1981)
Under Ground für amplifiziertes Ölfass und Tamtam (2021)
Helmut Lachenmann (*1935)
Toccatina – Study for solo violin (1986)
Thomas Adès (*1971)
from: Arcadiana for string quartet (1994) VI. O Albion
George Benjamin (*1960)
A Lullaby for Lalit for solo violin (2001) (Viola)
Óscar Escudero (*1992)
POST for string quartet, electronics and audience (2021)
Joseph Haydn (1732–1809)
String Quartet C Major, Op. 20,2 (1772)
Armenian Folk Song, solo cello
Johannes Julius Fischer: Duft
slam poetry, string quartet and percussion (2020)
Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy (1809–1847)
from: String Quartet F Minor, Op. 80
2. Allegro assai
Throughout the program, texts by Bas Böttcher appear.
The order of the works will be decided at short notice.
Duration: approx. 90 minutes, no break
Commissioned Works
Music exists in time
– this is important to us in both a literal and universal sense.
We are glad and also proud to be part of this ongoing journey of creativity.
The adventure started 1998 with Jörg Widmann’s first string quartet. As winners of the Karl Klingler Competition, we received a special prize for his work and performed it for the first time in Berlin.
We currently receive funding from the state of Lower Saxony in order to kindle new initiatives for string quartet.
An exciting part of our quartet life!

Francisco Coll: Códices
Premiere: 31.10.2023, Stadtcasino Basel
Duration: 15 minutes
Commissioned for the Kuss Quartet by Kammermusik Basel, Konzerthaus Berlin, Wigmore Hall, Het Concertgebouw, and Musik 21 Niedersachsen
Mark Andre: Sieben Stücke für Streichquartett
Premiere: 02.08.2022, Sommerliche Musiktage Hitzacker
Duration: 16 minutes
Iris ter Schiphorst: “Sei gutes Muts”
Premiere: 02.08.2021, Sommerliche Musiktage Hitzacker
Duration: 12 minutes
with Maurice Steger, recorder
Bruno Mantovani: Beethoveniana
Premiere: 16.06.2019, Suntory Hall Tokyo
Duration: 11 minutes
Co-commissioned by: Suntory Hall Tokyo, Philharmonie de Paris, ProQuartet Paris, Musik21 Niedersachsen Hannover,
Concertgebouw Amsterdam & Wigmore Hall London
Aribert Reimann: “Die schönen Augen der Frühlingsnacht”
Premiere: 14.12.2017, Muziekgebouw aan’t IJ Amsterdam
Duration: 9 minutes
with Mojca Erdmann, soprano
Co-commissioned by the Frankfurt Bürgerstiftung in the Holzhausenschlösschen, financed by the Ernst von Siemens Music Foundation
Enno Poppe: Freizeit
Premiere: 30.11.2016, Hannover
Duration: 5 minutes