Berlin Torstrasse, 4 o'clock in the morning, in October. The temperature is pleasant. A lukewarm, gently cooling breeze blows through the nighttime cityscape. The traffic has disappeared for a short while from the city's streets. For a brief instant life seems to stand still. A breath of air, cast in amber, immortalizes this moment in time, and afterwards all will again be as it was before; the city as it sleeps and wakes, pulses, full of life, then silent, relaxed and still, then vibrant and exciting on every corner, in every crack, on every patch of open ground, reflecting the facets of life. Before that comes about, before my breath returns from a slowmotion deceleration to its regular rhythm, a fox crosses Torstrasse, at a calm and steady trot, without a care in the world. We both stop, register the presence of the other, then he trots off again and I gaze after him as he disappears down a side street between the parked cars, and then everything comes back to life and the city unfurls its everready stage with the whole vast spectrum of urban life. Christian Jost, January 2014 Christian Jost has been commissioned by leading orchestras, festivals and opera houses around the world, including the Berlin Philharmonic, the Jerusalem Chamber Music Festival, the Zurich Opera. He has conducted orchestras such as the Hamburg Philharmonic Orchestra, the Essen Philharmonic, the National Symphony Orchestra Taiwan and the orchestra of the Komische Oper Berlin. His operas have been included in the repertoire of European opera houses, and his orchestral compositions have been regularly performed worldwide. In 2003, he received the Ernst von Siemens Foundation Encouragement Prize. In 2009, his opera Hamlet was praised as the World Premiere of the Year.