As part of BeTONt, CoGNiMUS’s concert residency in Gottfried Böhm-designed churches across Cologne, CoGNiMUS presents BeTONt I: Stabat Mater — a concert experience centered around Pergolesi’s and Pärt’s Stabat Mater.
Taking place across sacred buildings designed or transformed by the Cologne architect, the 2026/27 series brings together five concert experiences created specifically for their respective locations. The opening production will be presented at Sankt Gertrud Kirche + Kultur, in Cologne’s Agnesviertel, with a programme centred on two very different settings of the medieval Stabat Mater: Giovanni Battista Pergolesi’s work from 1736 and Arvo Pärt’s composition from 1985.
The approximately 70-minute performance places the two works in dialogue with one another. Pergolesi’s Baroque score for soprano, alto, strings and basso continuo is paired with Pärt’s sparse setting for three voices and string trio, allowing two musical languages, separated by almost 250 years, to approach the same text and its central image: a mother standing beside the body of her son.
Rather than presenting the works as a conventional double bill, CoGNiMUS has developed a semi-staged performance around them. The production examines grief not only as a religious subject, but as a shared human experience that reaches beyond cultural and religious identities.
Programme
Arvo Pärt: Stabat Mater (1985)
for soprano, alto, tenor and string trio
Giovanni Battista Pergolesi: Stabat Mater (1736)
for soprano, alto, strings and basso continuo
Conductor: Yorgos Ziavras
Soprano: Nina Koufochristou
Countertenor: Gerben van der Werf
Tenor: TBA
Performer: Michaela Winterstein
Video: Panos Zygouros
With the ensemble of the CoGNiMUS Collektiv
