Night Shifts 5
with Billy Bultheel
Performance Concert
5 September 2026, 8:30 pm
St. Nikolai Memorial, Hamburg
in cooperation with City Curator Hamburg
as part of FIRE. From the Cosmos to the Commons
In a world that seems to be coming apart, the darkness of history reverberates like an echo in the present. It encounters a society suspended in a state of sleep paralysis, while familiar sounds disappear from everyday life, voices fall silent, and the noise of polemics drowns out subtle tones. Collapse becomes a sonic condition.
For the fifth edition of Night Shifts, musician and performance artist Billy Bultheel presents the site-specific performance concert A Short History of Decay III at the St. Nikolai Memorial. The work is based on research into the systematic confiscation and melting down of church bells by the Nazi regime during the Second World War, when thousands of bells across Europe were requisitioned and recast as raw material for the armaments industry. The work considers bells both as musical instruments and as historical witnesses: with their disappearance, not only was a significant part of Europe's material cultural heritage destroyed, but centuries of artisanal knowledge and unique sonic traditions were also lost. Bultheel's performance connects these historical traces to a present in which the resurgence of fascism once again threatens democratic values. A Short History of Decay III resonates particularly strongly within the ruins of St. Nikolai Church, whose bells likewise fell victim to the World Wars and whose new carillon was installed only in 1993. Performed in dialogue with a six-piece ensemble, the carillon—played by carillonneur Werner Lamm—becomes an integral part of Bultheel's new composition. It moves between antiquity and the present, combining reinterpreted Gregorian chant with electronics, blast beats and piercing distortion.
Night Shifts activates sites across Hamburg where darkness can be experienced and explored through artistic practice. For centuries, sacred architecture has worked with the interplay of darkness and light. At the ruins of St. Nikolai Church in Hamburg's city center, however, this choreography has been disrupted. Where vaulted ceilings once directed light and staged darkness as a space for contemplation, the building now stands open to the sky. Weather, daylight, and the changing atmosphere become immediate parts of the site.
Performers:
Vocals: Leah Marojević
Flute: Adam Sinclaire
Viola da gamba: Kyran Richard Assing
Double bass: Caleb Salgado
Live electronics: Andrea D'Arsiè
Carillon: Werner Lamm
Piano / Harmonium: Billy Bultheel
Night Shifts is a year-long artistic program by Rosanna Graf, Lisa Klosterkötter and Gesa Troch, unfolding across Hamburg’s public spaces, structured into eight chapters dedicated to the theme of darkness. The fifth edition is realized in collaboration with the City Curator (Stadtkuratorin) and forms part of Hamburg Art Week (3–6 September 2026).
As a prologue to the performance on 5 September 2026, the carillon of the St. Nikolai Memorial is activated every Saturday at 8 pm with Bultheel's composition Act I (Le rachat des cloches). The work is part of the exhibition FIRE. From the Cosmos to the Commons (21 June–21 September 2026), curated by Joanna Warsza, City Curator Hamburg.
The Night Shifts programme is kindly supported by Elbkulturfonds, Behörde für Kultur und Medien, Hamburgische Kulturstiftung and Claussen-Simon-Stiftung.
