Henning Fuchs, Lisa Lambe & Uzo Ubaka Nwanaga - Cocoon (2024) [Official Digital Download 24/96]

In the ever-evolving landscape of contemporary classical music, composer Henning Fuchs is proving to be a trailblazer with his latest release COCOON. He combines a variety of genres and cultural influences to create his own world. It is the third album on the Neue Meister label. In terms of content, it deals with farewell, transformation and new beginnings - musically it is a unique combination of neoclassical elements and nuances from world music, pop and jazz. The boundaries of musical conventions are exceeded here. Henning Fuchs, who worked for the composer Max Richter for five years, brings his cinematic composition experience and creates works that invite inner reflection and contemplation.

Henning Fuchs' path takes him from his home in the Ahr Valley, first to Sir Paul McCartney's Liverpool Institute for Performing Arts (LIPA) in the United Kingdom and later to Berlin, where he first founded a folk pop band before attending the Babelsberg Film University "Konrad Wolf". visited.

As a “backpack Berliner”, he remained loyal to his adopted homeland for almost 20 years until social changes and tensions in Germany forced him, his wife and their four children to emigrate to Ireland in autumn 2021, where they still live today.

In their new homeland, immigrants are also called “blowins”: “those blown here by the wind”. And so the wind initially blows the family from one place to another. With the deep desire to finally find a new home, the music matures into COCOON: “Big changes are a process of suffering and joy. A phase of pain and healing, of failure and learning, of letting go of the familiar, of finding new perspectives and hope,” says the composer.

In the spring of 2023, Henning Fuchs buys a converted shepherd's hut, puts it in a field next to the rented house and sets it up as a work and composing room. From now on he can compose and work during the day again while “home school children” take over the small house. Shortly after the album is finished, the wind blows the family again towards West Cork…

“In Ireland everyone knows each other through a few corners,” says the composer happily. Ireland has a total of about as many inhabitants as Berlin. “The island is like a village.” He quickly made the acquaintance of the Swiss percussionist Martin Schärer, who has lived on Dingle for 17 years. Through him he came into contact with the Castle String Quartet (which plays with artists such as U2, The Corrs and Glen Hansard, among others). And so the renowned harpist Aisling Ennis and the internationally celebrated folk singer Lisa Lambe also come on board.

Hailed by the Irish Times as the best singer and actress of her generation, Lisa Lambe was a member of the group Celtic Woman for five years. With her sensitive voice, she takes the songs LOVE IS and LEARN HOW TO DIE to a whole new emotional level and yet fits seamlessly into the arrangements of the largely instrumental album.

COCOON takes the listener through the highs and lows of transformation in an uplifting and enchanting way. While the pieces are closely linked to each other, each represents a moment in the process of change: saying goodbye (THE WORLD IS GREAT), suffering (THE STRAIN), doubt (LOVE IS EVERYWAY), separation (SEPARATION), tears ( TEARS OF THE PAST), transformation, missteps and confusion (LOST AT SEA), letting go (LEARN HOW TO DIE), happiness and love (LOVE IS EVERYWAY – REPRISE). When the cocoon opens, there is no longer a familiar path to take (THE WAY OUT). With the new, the metamorphosis reaches another level. Liberation is joy and uncertainty in one, equally accompanied by magic and sadness (LEARN HOW TO DIE).

COCOON is a metaphor for the current global changes that each of us perceives differently. Whatever external path one chooses in the process of change, “it is the inner attitude and the will to change oneself that determines whether the cocoon produces joy or suffering; whether the butterfly that hatches from the cocoon can fly – or not,” sums up Henning Fuchs

Henning Fuchs, guitar, bouzouki, keyboard
Uzo Ubaka, vocals
Lisa Lambe, vocals
Katie O'Connor, violin
Aoife Dowdall, violin
Aoife Durnin, viola
Paula Hughes, cello
Aisling Ennis, harp
Kieran Moynihan, flute
Jon Sanders, mandola, guitar
Fion O'Neill, double bass
Martin Schärer, percussion

Tracklist:
01. The World Is Great
02. The Strain
03. Love Is
04. Separation
05. Tears of the Past
06. Verwandlung
07. Lost at Sea
08. Learn How to Die
09. The Way Out
10. Liberation
11. Love Is (Reprise)


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