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Pile of Songs – Nadja Zela
All of Zurich in one app
Parties, concerts, exhibitions and shows, tonight and all week, with a reminder before what you don't want to miss.
Open in the appPile of Songs is an intimate concert & conversation series exploring songwriting and literary influences. Surrounded by bookshelves, each evening opens with a short conversation about songwriting and literary inspirations, followed by a live concert in this intimate setting.… Pile of Songs is an intimate concert & conversation series exploring songwriting and literary influences. Surrounded by bookshelves, each evening opens with a short conversation about songwriting and literary inspirations, followed by a live concert in this intimate setting. Seating is limited to 20 guests. NADJA ZELA (ZH) What began with The Whooshings in occupied spaces and made indie rock feminine with Rosebud has condensed into an idiosyncratic exceptional phenomenon of alternative rock in Zela's solo work. She is the defiant champion of the impossible, one of the few women of her generation who did not fall silent in the music scene as a mother of two, rockedthe stage heavily pregnant, and later, as a far-too-young grieving widow, reached an artistic peak with her much-praised Andromeda Requiem. At a time when everyone else was forming solo and as duos for business reasons, she toured the stages with half an orchestra complete with choir and elaborate instrumentation. Is that now defiant, visionary, or simply stubborn? In any case, it contains a determination unusual for our time. Zela thinks in albums, composes along thematic lines. She knows the shadow sides – and knows how to wrest songs from them that console without being kitsch. But instead of sinking into melancholy, she defies it with every line, vehemently defends the tenderness of unconditional love, and celebrates the wild life of rebelling souls. Her lyrics are incantations against the monstrous, sparks of hope, feel personal but never private, political without slogans – they are full of humor if you read between the lines. In this music lies an attitude that has been described by the press as "the rare quality of grandezza." In a songwriting world that is often too polished, Nadja Zela is a rough and honest voice for the survivors of an alienated time.