On 11 April 2025, the opening of an exhibition dedicated to the Jacob Böhme Contemporary Artists’ Association (Jakob Böhme Bund) took place in Dom Kultury in Zgorzelec. This exhibition is a tribute to Ronald Steckel, who was a member of the association and also a great inspiration for all artists.

Ronald passed away in June 2024.

The Schoole of Night was responsible for the musical setting of the event. Frank Pschichholz composed a new piece of music. Which accompanied the recording of Bo-Yin-Ra’s texts, read by Ronald Steckel.

Bo Yin Ra “The Art of Dying” from The Book On The Life Beyond (1920/1929) read by Ronald Steckel and set to music by The Schoole of Night

Maria Skiba – voice and synthesiser
Frank Pschichholz – electric guitar, synthesizer and sampler

Für die Unsrigen – ein Impuls | In Memoriam Ronald Steckel

Miejski Dom Kultury, ul. Parkowa 1, 59-900 Zgorzelec

11 April until 8 June 2025

More information about the exhibition under: https://www.jakob-boehme-bund.de/

and: https://www.mdk.zgorzelec.eu/2025/03/31/wsrod-naszych-fur-die-unsrigen/

Jacob Böhme und Angelus Silesius

The Schoole of Night

Maria Skiba & Frank Pschichholz

Concert in the Freie Waldorfschule Görlitz „Jacob Böhme“

20 March 2025

17 November 2024

13.00, Gleis 1 – KulTourPunkt im Bahnhof Görlitz

The Schoole of Night at the Jacob Böhme Memorial Festival in Görlitz / Zgorzelec

“Böhme & Kafka – Zwei aus der Zeit gefallene Herren” – Stage readings with compositions of contemporary and classical music

Frank Pschichholz, Maria Skiba & Hans Narva

14.30 Nikolaikirche, Bogstraße

Finissage of the audio installation & exhibition ‘Höre Du blinder Mensch’– Klaus Weingarten & Jan Korthäuer (Jacob Böhme-Bund), Hannover
Commemoration of Ronald Steckel (author, composer, director & multimedia artist), music provided by Maria Skiba & Frank Pschichholz

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https://www.kulturerbeforum.de/

Friday 11.10.2024 at 18.00 in Miejski Dom Kultury in Zgorzelec

The Schoole will perform a programme with a choice of songs from Angelus Silesius’ Heilige Seelen=Lust (1657/68).

Heilige Seelen=Lust a collection of religious and spiritual songs / poems, the music for which was composed by Georg Joseph, a composer associated with the bishop’s court in Breslau. He is mentioned in several contemporary sources as a ‘famous composer’. Unfortunately, little is known about his life today, and only his compositions from Heilige Seelen=Lust, as well as the works contained in the so-called Krzeszów Passion Prayer Book of 1682 (Schmerzhaffter / Lieb und / Kreutz-Weeg) have survived to our times.

Heilige Seelen=Lust or The Holy Delight of the Spirit is a cycle of religious songs about man’s knowledge of holiness. The subject of the poems is the human soul in love with Jesus – the psyche, seeking the Saviour on the paths of its life. Scheffler was very much inspired by the biblical Song of Songs. In Helige Seelen=Lust, the soul (psyche) is the Bride and Jesus is the Bridegroom.

A project produced by:

Internationale Jacob Böhme Gesellschaft, The Schoole of Night and Miejski Dom Kultury w Zgorzelcu

On 7 September 2024 The Schoole of Night will perform the composition of Manfred Stahnke ‘…wohlgestimmete gebärende Harmoney…’

The composition was comissioned by The Schoole of Night and The Internationale Jacob Böhme Gesellschaft in 2018. It is designed for the special acoustics of the Nikolaikirche in Görlitz and it provides the listener and the performer with exceptional sound, spiritual and intellectual experiences.

Nikolaikirche Görlitz, 7 September 2024, 19.00

After the performance you can join the ensemble in conversation.

The composer Manfred Stahnke wrote in 2018:

Jacob Böhme ist für mich ein Faszinosum. Er muss ein Gesicht gehabt haben über den Kern der Welt jenseits der christlichen Doktrinen. Er vertraute seinen Augen. Er sah die Sonne und die Natur und versuchte, Worte dazu zu finden. Sehr bescheiden, ohne mich in irgendeiner Weise mit dem großen Jacob vergleichen zu wollen, möchte ich auf meine Böhme – Paraphrase eingehen. Diese Musik will nichts anderes, als mit ihren Mitteln über meine Welterfahrung berichten. Dabei sollen einige Gedanken Böhmes via die Sopranstimme direkt zur Geltung kommen. Ich glaube, auch für Böhme waren Wörter nur Annäherungen an seine Gesichter, ganz so, wie ich glaube, dass Musik immer nur eine Annäherung ist. In ihr stecken Zahlen, Formen, Farben und noch Anderes, was ebenso schwer zu beschreiben ist wie die Notate Jacob Böhmes. Und alles gehört zu unserem umfassenden Bemühen, die Welt um uns her zu begreifen. Oder zu begrüßen.

Jacob Böhme is a fascination for me. He must have had a vision of the core of the world beyond Christian doctrines. He trusted his eyes. He saw the sun and nature and tried to find words for them. Very modestly, without wanting to compare myself in any way with the great Jacob, I would like to go into my Böhme paraphrase. This music wants nothing more than to use its means to report on my experience of the world. Some of Böhme’s thoughts are to be expressed directly via the soprano voice. I believe that for Böhme, too, words were only approximations of his visions, just as I believe that music is always only an approximation. It contains numbers, shapes, colours and other things that are just as difficult to describe as Jacob Böhme’s notations. And it is all part of our comprehensive endeavour to understand the world around us. Or to welcome it.

Here you can listen to two new songs that The Schoole recorded recently.

Image © Maria Skiba

Witchcraft by a Picture. Frank Pschichholz, Text John Donne © The Schoole of Night 2024

I FIX mine eye on thine, and there
Pity my picture burning in thine eye ;
My picture drown’d in a transparent tear,
When I look lower I espy ;
Hadst thou the wicked skill
By pictures made and marr’d, to kill,
How many ways mightst thou perform thy will?

But now I have drunk thy sweet salt tears,
And though thou pour more, I’ll depart ;
My picture vanished, vanish fears
That I can be endamaged by that art ;
Though thou retain of me
One picture more, yet that will be,
Being in thine own heart, from all malice free.

All rights reserved © The Schoole of Night

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Image © Maria Skiba

John Dowland, Deare if You Change (The First Booke of Songs, 1597), Maria Skiba & Frank Pschichholz, recorded by Michael Havenstein in Sendesaal Bremen © The Schoole of Night 2024

Dear, if you change, I’ll never choose again;
Sweet, if you shrink, I’ll never think of love;
Fair, if you fail, I’ll judge all beauty vain;
Wise, if too weak, more wits I’ll never prove.
Dear, sweet, fair, wise, change, shrink, nor be not weak;
And on my faith, my faith shall never break.

Earth with her flowers shall sooner heaven adorn;
Heaven her bright stars through, earth’s dim globe shall move;
Fire heat shall lose, and frosts of flame be born;
Air, made to shine, as black as hell shall prove:
Earth, heaven, fire, air, the world transformed shall view,
Ere I prove false to faith, or strange to you.

All rights reserved © The Schoole of Night