There is something addictive about not knowing what comes next.

DAS HAUS season six begins with exactly that feeling: a voice, a piano, then a pause you can hear, while she decides, tuning into her own raw emotions and yours. That pause is the concert called carte blanche // surrender, and by the end you will know exactly who surrendered to whom.

No set list. No dramaturgy decided last winter. Carte blanche, for real.

Rachel Fenlon is a classical soprano and pianist who has watched the pop and folk world for years and wanted what it has: a live show where nobody, the performer included, knows exactly what comes next. This is the evening she brings that singer-songwriter risk into her own world. She accompanies herself, rare to do and rarer to do well, so there is no second musician to catch her eye, no page for anyone to turn. The perfectionist noise in her head goes first, then the control of the evening, and that — she hands it to you. She tunes into the quiet of the people around her, the weight or lightness someone carried in from the street, and lets that tip the next piece. What she plays back is shaped by you. Even she will not know what that is until you are in your seat.

This letting go has come to mean even more to her lately. She has recently lost people close to her, and music and performing are  where she holds space for that grief. This evening, she chooses to let go and surrender — to the audience, to the moment, and to her grief — in her most vulnerable way. She meets it live, in front of you, choosing from the music that carries her right now.  Schubert, whose songs can turn a quiet hour into a whole weather system; Philip Glass, the American master of looping patterns you have heard in film scores; Hania Rani, the Polish pianist whose circling pieces live now in a great many headphones; and Radiohead, the band that made unease sound beautiful. Alongside them, her own arrangements. No promises about which piece arrives or when.

Canadian soprano Rachel Fenlon is also a composer and a self-accompanied recital specialist. Her recording of Schubert's Winterreise is the first self-accompanied recording of the cycle ever made, earning Album of the Week from BBC Radio 3, CBC and Gramophone. She has sung at Deutsche Oper Berlin and Vancouver Opera, and taken a classical recital to SXSW in Texas, one of the biggest pop festivals there is.

In her own words: "This has been a dream of mine for years. At DAS HAUS, an experimental home that trusts its artists to take these risks, I finally get to find out what happens."

Bring whatever you arrive with. It ends up in the music.

Food:
Before the concert, we gather around a delicious, seasonal vegetarian/vegan meal by our chef Miguel — an essential part of the DAS HAUS experience. Food is prepared in limited quantities, so arrive early or better reserve a food add-on while booking your ticket to be sure to join the feast.

Schedule:
19:30: doors, drinks & food
20:30: start concert
21:45: end concert & drinks