Sunday 1st / 16:30 / Aribau Club 2
Sunday 8th / 18:30 / Aribau Club 2

It seems like a classical music documentary, but the concepts it brandishes fly higher than the sun. This is the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra, on a six city asian tour. Their trip and the concerts are an excuse for Grube to delineate his most fascinating questions, a series of queries that could just as easily be applied to the orchestra as to the human race in general. In certain modes, as their members do not cease to affirm here, the philharmonic is a microcosm, a society inside another society, and so has a culture and some subtleties that are only possibly appreciated via living on the inside. That is what makes Trip to Asia life within a grand philharmonic orchestra. And, during his stay, Grube asks himself: Where does the individual end and the group begin? How do the distinct personalities and particulars of 126 subjects harmonize? How do you acquire the necessary equilibrium between, on one side, ego and competitiveness (par for the course in this kind of community) and the other, yielding before the necessities of the group as a whole. All this and more is masterly scrutinized in Trip to Asia.
126 social outcasts, the geeks marginalized in their respective schools, speak here of obsession, dedication, isolation and loneliness, effort, interaction and competition. They talk about how they love their music, but also how this is a way to find appreciation, to fit in, to be loved. Their director, Sir Simon Rattle, gets close to them to try to explain what makes these displaced men and women exceptional people. And we don't forget the pieces, Thomas Ades' "Asyla", Beethoven's "Heroic Symphony" and Strauss' "Ein Heldenleben". When they unite that with magnificent photography, they have a poetically perfect picture of the ego of a philharmonic orchestra.

TRIP TO ASIA | The Quest for Harmony | Trailer from Boomtown Media on Vimeo.