In June 2025, the PERFORMAGE association is staging the first theatre festival with productions featuring people aged 60+. Projects from German-speaking Switzerland, French-speaking Switzerland, Ticino and Germany will be shown and experienced.
Rustling benches, whooping pebbles, squawking fences? That can only be Das Freie Orchester, always on the move and always in the way. Jubilating in everyday life, sometimes behind or over it. But not for fun, but deadly serious. Böh-tuuh. Tscha-ha-sh. Shh!
Conductor: Thomas Jacobi
Ensemble: Das Freie Orchester, Bern
In the ensemble Das Freie Orchester , founded in 2023, we invent exciting compositions together without sheet music and discover new sounds on instruments and unusual sound objects.
From initially tentative improvisations, we create common arcs of musical movements that sometimes come together to form contemplative and sometimes curious or rebellious pieces of music - either spontaneously or more deliberately.
We rely entirely on close listening and careful harmonisation and compose pieces of music out of the moment with cheerful curiosity. No musical prerequisites are therefore required for ensemble work - neither detailed knowledge of sheet music or instrumental experience, nor any theoretical knowledge.
Our ensemble is a lively meeting place for amateur musicians who would like to improvise freely, people with life experience who want to make music again without having to learn an instrument from scratch, as well as the occasional professional musician.
Our seasonal projects alternate in a creative rhythm: The "Sound Workshop" is all about trying things out, finding your own voice and developing new musical ideas, supported by small exercises and guided improvisation. In the "concert project", we play several pieces of music together, which we present in public at the end.
Our door is wide open, not only in terms of ensemble participation, but also in terms of our fee philosophy: you pay what you can. Costs should not be a barrier to enjoying music.
The Free Orchestra stands for creative sociability and joie de vivre and for the love of music. Come and have a free taster or try out a season! Contact: dasfreieorchester.info@toenstoer.ch.
The Free Orchestra is an initiative of the non-profit, cross-cantonal cultural organisation Tönstör.