The entrance halls of court buildings are often among the most impressive examples of a city’s architecture. The stonework and ornamentation create an intimidating backdrop that makes the accused feel small and guilty even before they enter the courtroom. The vast scale of the entrances, their imposing architecture and echoing acoustics, make courthouses reminiscent of churches or cathedrals.

Here, where the law is re-interpreted every day, where hundreds of defendants, lawyers, prosecutors, judges and visitors hurry to their appointments, Christian Garcia stages an amateur choir of amateur singers from the city, who give an a capella rendition of a Renaissance liturgy, which they translate into movement. An encounter between the spiritual tradition of choral singing and a more or less secular institution.

Christian Garcia, Lausanne/Berlín

Christian Garcia (1968) trained in classical guitar, piano, and music education. He composed and directed the music for five theatre pieces with the Swiss collective Velma, which unpredictably alternates between Performance, music theatre and concert in works like “Cyclique 1&2” (2000), “Applique” (2001), “Rondo” (2002), “Velma Superstar” (2005) and “Requiem” (2007).
Garcia also composes for various dance and theatre productions by Elodie Pong and Robert Pacitti, Denis Maillefer and Fabienne Berger. He also writes film music, in Switzerland for, among others, Jean-Stéphane Bron, as well as for Vincent Pluss, in Germany for Sonja Heiss, and in England for Andrew Kötting. He began staging his own music-theatre pieces in 2010, including “Glissando” in Warsaw’s municipal theatre, and “Pastiche” in Stadttheater, Bern. He has also established a reputation as a filmmaker, above all with the short film “La Caverne” (2009) made jointly with Frank Semelet and Catherine Travelletti. Garcia’s works have been performed in Switzerland, Germany, Belgium, Poland, Czech Republic, France, Spain and other European venues.

www.christiangarcia.ch