Since its first performance in 1981, Giorgio Battistelli’s Experimentum Mundi, for actor, 16 artisans, a chorus of female voices, and one percussionist, has been performed more than 200 times by major festivals and theatres in Europe, Asia, Oceania, and North America. In 2008 the composer wrote Sinfonia da Experimentum Mundi in which an ensemble of 16 instruments was added to the original instrumentation. Now the composer has written a new version of the Sinfonia for 30 musicians which replaces the version for ensemble. It will be premiered on February 9, 2016 at the KlangZeit Festival in Münster for the first time.

The performers include an actor (who recites texts drawn from Diderot and d’Alembert’s Enciclopédie), 16 artisans (knife grinders, pastry makers, builders, blacksmiths, stone masons, carpenters, cobblers, and coopers), a chorus of female voices, one percussionist and an orchestra of 30 musicians. For this premiere, actor Hannes Demming with the Münster Symphony Orchestra and local artisans will be conducted by Fabrizio Ventura.