Bill Murray sings classics of literature in a cabaré with music by Bach and Bernstein | Culture | EUROtoday
It was a movie encounter throughout an evening flight from Berlin to New York in the summertime of 2013. Jim Jarmusch wouldn’t have scripted it higher: on the time of cargo, an already veteran actor offers a contact to the viconchelista who queues in entrance of him along with his voluminous instrument. “He asked me how I planned to fix them with such a big case in the cabin,” says Jan Vogler (Berlin, 61 years) by videoconference from Dresde. “I will hug him with all my strength,” he replied, and broke up. The dialog continued contained in the aircraft “we only separated a corridor and we had a good handful of hours ahead,” Bill Murray intervenes (Evanston, Illinois, 74 years previous) from one other display, at his dwelling in Snedens Landing (New York). “So we start sharing all kinds of confidences about filming and concerts …”
Thus, 11,000 meters excessive, the friendship between two strangers was born. “Something had to do with the good initial tuning,” says the German musician, “but above all our excellent teamwork.” It refers back to the second of the flight during which a passenger suffered a panic assault that the crew didn’t know handle correctly. Vogler tried to calm her, Murray simply occurred to him to scream: “Ice cream, bring ice cream!” For some motive that resulted and the commander ended up congratulating them for his or her feat. “We celebrate it as a great victory,” emphasizes the actor. As quickly because the telephones had been exchanged and, inside just a few weeks, Murray despatched his new colleague of the Upper West Side a mysterious textual content message: “See you in Manhattan’s access to the Brooklyn bridge, at 5 in the afternoon, if you have time.”
Vogler went to the occasion in sportswear with out figuring out very nicely what to stay to. “Until that day I had never heard of the poetic walks about the East River, but Bill seemed to be very clear about what he was doing,” the cellist was honest. During the stroll, Murray recited poems from Walt Whitman with a lot ardour that he did not even flinch when the pedestrians stopped to take photos. “It was a moment of absolute connection,” confesses the musician. “Then we understood that we should do something together.” The challenge was taking form in the middle of a number of dinners at Murray’s home, with its infinite intermences across the nice masters of music and literature. “Bill’s library is impressive. He has everything one needs, from Shakespeare to Kierkegaard, to get to understand the world we live in.”

And that’s exactly the motor concept of New Worldsa present of “intellectual varieties”, they chant nearly in unison, which brings them on a tour of Spain with an uncommon mixture of classical music, literature and theater. He tour It will begin this Friday, June 13 on the Nuevo Apollo Theater in Madrid and is a part of the Veanos del Taoro Festival. Then they may go to the Alfredo Kraus de Las Palmas Auditorium (day 15), the Tenife Drawing Park (17) and the Arriaga Theater in Bilbao (19), earlier than saying goodbye within the excessive within the Grande room of the Liceu in Barcelona (21). “Spain has something very special, I don’t know if it’s the light, language or the way people look at you,” Murray sighs. “All that allows you to show you a bit more vulnerable on stage.” Vogler stirns his head: “It is a very living and enthusiastic audience.” Just in case, the work may have envelopes in Spanish.
The present’s recipe is seemingly easy: whereas Murray places voice to texts from Twain, Hemingway and Whitman himself, Vogler interprets works by Bach, Schubert or Bernstein with the violinist Mira Wang and the pianist Vanessa Pérez. “We do not touch as mere accompaniment,” admits the cellist. “Each note has to sustain the story, the rhythm of the text, breathing …” The repertoire didn’t have closed when Murray had a “mystical experience” throughout a automobile journey by means of the California desert, Palm Springs’s method. “That winter had rained a lot and I suddenly found in an oasis of purple flowers as I had not seen in my life,” he recollects. “In the background it sounded When Will I Ever Learn to Live in God?by Van Morrison, and I called our arranger to put this issue as soon as possible. ”

Faithful to the preliminary catharsis they skilled in Brooklyn, New Worlds It works as a cultural bridge between America and Europe. “Missing understanding, capacity for dialogue and empathy in modern democracies,” displays the cellist. Hence, most of the chosen texts revolve across the loss, fragility of pissed off identities and goals. “Yeah, New Worlds It also serves as a metaphor of what my country was, is and hopefully it can be again, “Murray acknowledges.” I think the great break began with the Vietnam War. Then came the lie of Iraq and the signaling of the antipatriots, and so on until today. “As for Trump, he prefers or naming it.” In 1976 the United States Bicentennial was an event. Next year will be the 250th anniversary and, really, I don’t know how mood we will get to the party … ”.
The actor does not take long to recover his usual composure, that of that humor so his that he travels between irreverence and melancholy, always to the limit of the absurdity, to talk about the relationship between the classics on both sides of the Atlantic: would they have taken Bach and Hemingway well to have attended class together? “Something tells me sure, as a result of past the wig of the primary and the battle look of the second, they’d a typical factor: they didn’t waste a single phrase or observe, which is why every little thing they wrote continues to maintain the essence of the genuine.” To which Vogler, who nods on the other side, adds: “Greatness acknowledges greatness. I don’t communicate solely of expertise, however in regards to the means to generate a change. Bach and Hemingway belong to that class. And that’s the reason their works may help us as we speak to recuperate misplaced friendships.”

Murray is not a professional musician, but knows how In time. Now you will have to see them with the stradivarius of Vogler in a Cabaré format between cult and casual. “The neatest thing to work with Bill is that it all the time surprises you,” says Vogler. “Proposes, invents, creates …” So much spontaneity has its risks and can lead to situations like the one that suspended the filming of Being Mortal Three years ago. “I used to be attempting to maintain the temper of the set,” Murray justifies, “however somebody understood it otherwise.” In that filming, the actor reached an extrajudicial agreement and paid $ 100,000 to a production assistant who accused him of “unseeled touching.”
Last year, in your movie Friend The co -star was a great Danish Arlequín. “It is essential to decide on the businesses nicely,” collects the glove. “That’s why now I dedicate myself to undertake actual human buddies. “His grimace on the screen has no waste.” Yes, right here the canine is me … “, accepts Vogler with a loud chuckle.
https://elpais.com/cultura/2025-06-11/bill-murray-canta-clasicos-de-la-literatura-en-un-cabare-con-musica-de-bach-y-bernstein.html