Lucy van Kuhl: "Cleverly packaged"

We live in a time in which the packaging often seems more important than the content: every simple chocolate bar is turned into an exclusive taste event through advertising, the janitor is given the exclusive title of facility manager instead of a pay rise and love no longer leaps into our lives with Cupid's random arrow as it used to, but rather tailor-made and algorithm-based via Tinder and Parship. The German Heinz Günter suddenly wraps himself up in a striped shirt and beret while on vacation in France and is surprised that he is not seen as Jean Pierre despite having a baguette under his arms... Packaging isn't everything Lucy van Kuhl also packages her insights in her fifth program extremely cleverly: Ludicrous observations are wrapped in gentle piano sounds, tiny marginal observations are given a large poetic magnifying glass and the dreariness of an old people's home is suddenly transformed into a rousing over-80s party by a cloak of fantasy. Delicate melancholy meets crashing mischief, classical piano meets boogie woogie, and if you think these things don't harmonize - Lucy's exuberant imagination is a strong, bright gift ribbon with which she easily holds it all together and - very cleverly - wraps it up. Lucy van Kuhl's work "Geschickt verpackt" is a mixture of political social criticism, which is both biting and humorous, and profound, melancholy songs. The criticism is packaged in the lyrics, which are often humorous and figurative, and in the moderations between the songs, such as a criticism of the "debt brake" or prejudices about different groups. Nenad Uskoković, a musical jack-of-all-trades, accompanies Lucy on the cello.