On 25 April, we opened a new chapter in our Vienna concert programme with our first event at Auferstehungskirche — an atmospheric church whose architecture gave the evening a quiet, almost cinematic depth.
With Hayao Miyazaki’s Dreams by Mystery Ensemble, we presented a programme dedicated to the music of Joe Hisaishi, the Japanese composer whose melodies have become inseparable from the animated worlds of Hayao Miyazaki. The audience heard music from Spirited Away, My Neighbor Totoro, Howl’s Moving Castle, Princess Mononoke, Kiki’s Delivery Service, Laputa: Castle in the Sky and Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind.
Performed by Mystery Ensemble, the music unfolded with warmth, precision and a delicate sense of its quieter shades. Between childhood wonder, melancholy, flight and stillness, the programme created soundscapes that felt especially vivid in the church’s acoustics. Pieces such as One Summer Day, Path of the Wind, Carrying You and The Legend of Ashitaka seemed to gain more space, as if the music itself could breathe.
For us, this concert was not only a tribute to Hisaishi’s music, but also a special encounter with a new Vienna venue. We create concerts in places with character — churches, historic mansions, rooftops, greenhouses and other atmospheric spaces across Europe and beyond. In every project, we look for moments where music and place begin to speak to each other.
Our first evening at Auferstehungskirche showed how naturally Miyazaki’s dreamlike universe can inhabit this space: gentle, luminous and full of memory.
