A Block of Flats with a Thousand Windows (Part 2)

1st floor, 1E
A young resident moves into her new apartment. One of the cupboard doors turns out to be locked, and a voice can be heard from behind it. Richard Ayres’s music is light and playful, gradually beginning to resemble Haydn as the piece unfolds. He also makes subtle use of electronics.

Step into A Block of Flats with a Thousand Windows, a six-part theatrical miniseries in which the walls vibrate with music, imagination, and human stories. The inventive composer and creative mind Primo Ish-Hurwitz (2001) breathes new life into Joseph Haydn’s six iconic Op. 20 string quartets—by connecting them with brand-new compositions by six leading Dutch composers of today. This is achieved in part through the sampling of old and new material—unusual in classical music, but common practice in genres such as hip-hop.

The Chaos String Quartet, together with actress Ariane Schluter and writer Joke van Leeuwen, weaves a compelling world in which past and present merge. Across six episodes, a timeless story unfolds, where sound and language, performance and emotion, meet and reinforce one another.