SEASON XI - METAMORPHOSIS
The 9th Annual Beethoven Birthday Bash

To celebrate Beethoven's 248th birthday, the International Beethoven Project is very excited to present the 9th Annual Beethoven Birthday Bash, this year exploring the theme of Metamorphosis.

This edition of IBP's Annual Beethoven Birthday Bash is organized like a festival. While we encourage you all to attend everything planned, you can also come and go as you please. We recommend purchasing the All Bash Pass that opens access to every event of every day. Otherwise you may purchase a single day pass, and come and go as you please on that day.

Friday, December 14th, 7:30pm to 11:30pm
Chopin Theater, 1543 W Division Street, Chicago

Saturday, December 15th, 2pm to 1am
Hairpin Arts Center, 2810 N Milwaukee Avenue, Chicago

Sunday, December 16th, 5:30pm to 9:30pm
Holy Trinity High School Auditorium
Grand Finale for Beethoven's day of birth!

This season, the theme of Metamorphosis will bring us face to face with Beethoven's approach to challenges as well as with our own, asking us to look at the crises in our lives and in our world in order to evolve. Featured artists include classical, jazz and rock musicians along with theater and improv performers, dancers, visual artists and more. Over the course of the next weeks we will introduce you to our participating artists!

Don't wait to reserve your passes now, as our venues are intimate and limited in space.

Ludwig van Beethoven (Bonn 1770 - Vienna 1827) is known for changing the history of music, helping to birth the Romantic movement by emancipating the artist from his usual position as a servant to court and church, becoming a challenger to the status quo, moving society forward, and bringing forth a new consciousness.

Beethoven's accomplishments and innovations as a musician and musical thinker did not happen automatically! He overcame many crises and underwent, along with the world around him, several metamorphoses.

The death of Beethoven's beloved mother when he was 17, the challenge of deafness in his thirties, his difficult love life, his failed attempt at raising his late brother's son, and his lifelong illnesses all contributed to his self questioning and inner growth. In society, the impact of the French Revolution across Europe, the Napoleonic wars, and the rise of a new society in the early industrial age, changed the world. Taken all together, these crises challenged Beethoven, opening up new pathways in his creativity, which we continue to explore and benefit from today.

The 2018 Beethoven Birthday Bash, the 9th annual celebration of Beethoven's birthday produced by IBP since 2010, is part of a ten year countdown to Beethoven's 250th birthday in 2020, for which IBP is planning several major events and media productions.