Classical Music meets Hip Hop

Word got around: The place was buzzing at the Lab Night in the hydraulic engieering lab ("Wasserbauhalle") on November 6. For the third time, a team from the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering joined forces with students from the Sound, Media and Production course to turn the Wasserbauhalle into the "wasserBARhalle" - with music, drinks and plenty of space to get together after work.

By Christina Janssen, 23.11.2025

Under the motto "Classical music meets club culture", the colorfully illuminated large laboratory first hosted a series of short concerts where guests could experience the artists up close or follow the action from the gallery. Later in the evening, the party team led by DJ Konstantin Moll from the media department took over the acoustic reigns.

Pianist Matthias Fenchel, who had already won acclaim at the first edition of Lab Nights, once again amazed the guests with his immense talent for improvisation and interpretations of jazz standards. Guitarists Lorenzo Micheli Pucci and Tiange Wang from the Akademie für Tonkunst Darmstadt delighted the audience with both delicate and wildly virtuoso sounds.

All pictures: Hans-Peter Schmal

The performance of the Cologne horn quartet with Karen and Ulrich Hübner, Martin Gericks and Christian Binde turned out to be a kind of baptism of fire, or rather a baptism of water (construction). The four musicians, who had never performed together in this formation before, spontaneously christened their ensemble the "Lab Night Quartet" - and then took the audience on a journey through the history of the development of their instrument: from the cow horn to Far Eastern horn variants, the garden hose (sic!) and the alphorn to the magnificent modern brass instrument with its spirally wound metal tubes. All these variants were not only presented in amusing mini-lectures, but also played. The sound of four alphorns in the large laboratory was a highlight of the evening.

The event was organized by a large team of volunteers. Prof. Dr. Arne Speer, Dean of the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, In his welcome speech, he thanked everyone involved, especially the dedicated team of volunteers at the wasserBARhalle, and hinted that work on issue IV was already underway: to be continued...