»Janus« by Various Artists

White Plains, Comfort Rooms

When winter draws a deep cold breath over fields and forests the human adjourns to his sitting room, retiring back to warm places and looking at the world outside. The glass window is the required artificial separation that lets us survive from the mortal power of coldness. Behind the window we can build up our private little universe with plants and flowers which need southern heat normally. Within this little world everything is put in the right cultivated order, everything is all right.

Building up a secure room we can lean back and contemplate the course of the world, the well-stabilized harmony between nature and culture, which we have built up. But the precondition for this little paradise is separation. In order to conserve the state of life, securing our spirit conceives new separating techniques again and again. With glass we may construct a winter garden to conserve summer state, with photos and videos we may remember past times and with recording techniques we even may hear formerly faded sounds. The conservative attitude always looks back in order to conserve a certain state of life, to stop the course of world.

But life with its seasonal eclipse always goes ahead. Janus, the ancient deity of transition and passage dominates the brumal season. He has two faces, one looking back and one looking forward. The first has a contemplative and conservative mindset and the second a planning and visionary one. At the conservatory we may learn something about right techniques and a former way of living. But we should realise it as our everlasting challenge for our future.

Contemplation is the condition for vision. So join our musical invitation and lean back in contemplation to draw breath for an exciting new year.