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(Deutsch) Eigenwilliger Avantgardist aus Zullwil: Der Komponist Hermann Meier
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(Deutsch) Simone Keller – vergessene Klaviermusik wiederentdeckt
Sound art and music by Martina Lussi: It happens very casually
Lucerne born Martina Lussi studied art and through listening she got into producing sound art and music herself. She explores nature and everyday life with microphones and an audio recorder and taking her impressions back to the studio, she condenses her listening experiences into installations, performances and studio albums, as well as field recordings and soundwalks.
Friedemann Dupelius
At the beginning of our Zoom conversation, Martina Lussi admits that she feels a bit disorganised. She is currently working a lot in an art library, so she is lacking time to listen and engage with sounds, which is a very important aspect to her. “Listening is something that happens very slow. You can’t just quickly listen to something – you have to start from the beginning and absorb it, otherwise you lose the context. Who really has time to listen these days?”
To get in the right mood for our conversation, she has turned her routine route around Lake Lucerne into a soundwalk this morning – in other words, a walk during which you actively listen to your surroundings. She reads out her listening log to me like a shopping list: “Trolleys, conversations, a jogger running past, my jacket, a dog breathing, ship masts, a person imitating a duck…” We both realise that we can imagine the individual sounds, but that such a description lacks one thing: the spatiality and simultaneity of the scenery. “My music thrives on the fact that many different sounds combine and flow into one another. It’s like a stream in which sounds are suddenly very close, only to dissolve into something else again.”
Frogs or wood?
At the end of 2019, Martina Lussi spent a residency in the Brazilian rainforest, where she was able to immerse herself in an unknown soundscape. “Some of the sounds were unsettling because I didn’t recognise them, especially at night. There was a frog for example, that sounded like wood – someone had to explain that to me first.” Her composition Serrinha Do Alambari Soundwalk is based on an audio walk in the village of the same name.
Footsteps of a group of people crunch on uneven ground and set the rhythm, over which one can hear various birds chirping. Gradually, a synthesiser rises like wafts of mist from the soundscape of the rainforest and merges into gentle tropical rain, until at some point the frogs chatter. Martina Lussi is not interested in reproducing the environment as it apparently sounds in reality – she adds artificial sounds and thus creates new sound spaces, such as dreamlike memories. She sometimes does not bother to cut out the wind that blows into the audio recorder. Some field recording purists would consider this a bad recording, but not Martina Lussi.
The composition Serrinha Do Alambari Soundwalk was released on vinyl in 2020 on the label Ōtium, along with a piece by Loïse Bulot.
Coat or birds?
On the contrary: she repeatedly incorporates unwanted background noises into her compositions. In her piece The Listener, these even become the sole material. It consists exclusively of sounds produced by coats. They became the focus of Martina Lussi’s attention while making recordings in nature as part of a research project on bird sounds: “You imagine it to be so idyllic, but early in the morning it’s often so cold that I’m freezing and have to keep moving. As I’m wrapped up in a thick jacket, it just resonates.” She realised that these sounds often sounded like the voices or even the beating of birds’ wings. She took four jackets, improvised with each one for ten minutes and used them to create a four-channel installation and composition.
The piece The Listener is part of the compilation Synthetic Bird Music and was released on tape in 2023 on the label mappa.
Martina Lussi does not consciously sharpen her ears with listening exercises before she goes into the field: “It happens very casually. When I go into the forest, I smell the oils from the trees, I can’t see far, I automatically enter an attentive state that I don’t have to prepare myself for.” As vividly as she talks about the Brazilian rainforest years later, it becomes clear that listening goes beyond the moment. It creates memories that last for a long time and that you can draw on even in more turbulent times.
Friedemann Dupelius
Martina Lussi, Martina Lussi on Bandcamp, Serrinha Do Alambari (Vinyl), Research project „Birdscapes“, Artspace sic! Elephanthouse in Luzern, Compilation: „Synthetic Bird Music“
Upcoming events:
18.05.2024 – Concert in Tbilisi (Georgia), Left Bank
24.05.2024 – Moa Espa, Geneva (Soundwalk)
18.06., 19:30 Uhr – Dampfzentrale Bern (WP Proximity with Ensemble Proton, + open rehearsal on 17.06.)
23.06., 17 Uhr – Postremise Chur
neo-profile: Martina Lussi
Composing with mobile technology: Lara Stanic – media artist
Electronic composition, performance, sound art: Zurich-based composer, performer, media artist and flautist Lara Stanic is hard to categorise. In her concert performances, she combines media, instruments, objects and musicians’ bodies and refers to specific locations and contexts. In this interview, she gives an insight into the creation of her latest works for the Zurich Baroque Orchestra.
Gabrielle Weber
I meet Lara Stanic for a cup of coffee at her kitchen table on a snowy Saturday morning at the beginning of January. We talk about her latest composition ‘Du matin au soir’: it was written in summer 2023 for the Zurich Baroque Orchestra and consists of eight sound interventions that were performed between individual symphony movements by Haydn. The concerts took place at different times of day in various Zurich locations: the botanical garden, an outdoor swimming pool and in St Peter’s Church.
Lara Stanic generally uses electronic media for her pieces and often also integrates context-related objects. The selection of specific media is a process, says Stanic. “I let myself be inspired by the context, the performers, the instruments and the way they can be played. This generates sounds in my head and I conceive ways of playing.”
In Sonnenstand, the sound intervention to Haydn’s symphony Der Mittag, the musicians ‘play’ with round portable mirrors that produce sound using smartphones. The idea came from a childhood memory. “As a child, I used portable mirrors to catch the sunlight at noon and create shadows and light reflections on a nearby wall,” says Stanic.
Sonnenstand by Lara Stanic, from du matin au soir, composed for the Zurich Baroque Orchestra, premiered in Zurich in 2023. Botanical Garden and St. Peter’s Church, Zurich, Videos © Andreas Pfister and Philip Bartels.
In Sonnenstand, the musicians also capture sunlight with mirrors, but this time turning it into music. Mobile phones are attached to the back of the mirrors. Built-in motion sensors, microphones and loudspeakers capture the movements of the mirrors and convert them into sounds. Stanic explains that this creates a hybrid form of two the media, mirror and smartphone.
Sonnenstand thus also reflects a basic theme characterising Stanic’s artistic work: In electronic music, she is often bothered by the clumsiness of large, almost threatening loudspeakers and mixing consoles. By using mobile devices, she searches for lightness and mobility. Stanic also often appears as performer of her own works. She first tests what she develops on herself. “I always was and still am my best guinea pig,” she says.
Stanic first studied the flute, then music and media art in Zurich and Bern. She continues to play and teach the flute and sees it as her musical home. “My training as a performer and teacher provided me with a foundation and knowledge of compositional thinking. I am equally interested in creating sounds on acoustic as well as electronic instruments.” Her first access to music was through radio and television during her childhood in former Yugoslavia. Even back then, she was fascinated by the amount of emotions sound waves could trigger. The connection between music and electronics was therefore obvious, she adds with a laugh: “Of course, I didn’t realise it being about sound waves at the time.”
Humour and playful lightness also characterise her works with everyday objects. In Kafi, another sound intervention, this time for Haydn’s symphony Der Morgen, an oversized Bialletti espresso machine becomes an instrument. Two concert masters brew coffee on stage and ‘play’ with the sounds of the bubbling. “When I get up in the morning, I make my coffee in a Bialetti machine. It sounds very nice and I always associate the smell of coffee with that sound. I remember the sounds and smells from my childhood. And then an orchestra always has to drink coffee during rehearsal breaks. So there’s a very practical side to it as well…”
Kafi, another sound intervention by Lara Stanic from Du matin au soir, composed for the Hayn Symphony Der Morgen, Zurich Baroque Orchestra, premiered in Zurich in 2023, at St. Peter’s Church, Video © Andreas Pfister, Renate Steinmann.
Kafi is all about transformation, the sound and aroma of coffee being transformed into music. In addition, there is an electronic extension of classical instruments, as the violin bows of the concert masters are equipped with motion sensors. They use them to touch the coffee machine like magic wands, which are then swung through the air. This amplifies the sound of the bubbling, spreads throughout the room and mixes with the beginning of the symphony. In her own words: “The violin bows become magic wands, which in turn transform the aroma of the coffee into music”.
The process behind it is very simple though. First there is the idea, then a sound, in this case the bubbling of the coffee and then she looks for solutions as to how this can be connected to the sound of the instruments. The performative actions of the concert masters form a bridge for the audience between the sounding everyday object and the instruments. Based on this simple principle, Stanic transforms everyday objects into music and leaves a lasting impression on my morning coffee.
Gabrielle Weber
Lara Stanic, Du matin au soir, Video collage of the eight sound interventions for the Zurich Baroque Orchestra on Haydn symphonies, world creation Zurich 2023, Video © Andreas Pfister, Renate Steinmann, Philipp Bartels.
Lara Stanic is co-founder and member of the trio Funkloch featuring also PR and SH, which invites six composers each year to an experimental studio concert broadcasted live on air, or the GingerEnsemble, a Bern-based composer-performer collective. She composes for soloists, ensembles and orchestras, as well as for her own performances, which she regularly performs at international festivals and has been a lecturer in Performing New Technologies at Bern University of the Arts since 2011.
FunkLoch celebrated its sixth anniversary on Saturday, 20.1.24, 17h at Kunstraum Walcheturm with works by Annette Schmucki, Daniel Weissberg, Svetlana Maraš, Dorothea Rust and Joke Lanz.
Features SRF Kultur:
MusikMagazin, 10.2.2024: Cafégespräch with Lara Stanic by Gabrielle Weber, editorial Benjamin Herzog.
Zämestah, 21.12.2020: TV-Portrait Lara Stanic
Musik unserer Zeit, 21.09.2013: Spiel mit urzeitlicher Elektronik: Das Ginger Ensemble, editorial Lislot Frey
neo-profiles:
Lara Stanic, Funkloch OnAir, Kunstraum Walcheturm, Sebastian Hofmann, petra ronner, Annette Schmucki, Daniel Weissberg, Svetlana Maraš, Joke Lanz, Neue Musik Rümlingen.
Self-taught musician with a soft spot for poetry: Christoph Gallio
Saxophonist, composer and event organiser Christoph Gallio has been shaping the Swiss and international free jazz and new improvisation scene for almost 40 years. In this interview with Friederike Kenneweg, he reveals how he moved from improvisation to composition and what role poetry plays in the process.
Friederike Kenneweg
Young Christoph Gallio (*1957) used his first self-earned money to buy a soprano saxophone and taught himself to play. Even though he later spent a year at the Basel conservatory and at some point even completed a degree, he has remained true to this attitude of self-taught musician who simply does it and finds out how best to do it – as an improvising musician in free jazz, among other things, as a composer, as an organiser and as the operator of the PERCASO label.
Looking for new impulses
In order to develop further on his unconventional path, Christoph Gallio has always looked for new stimuli on the outside.
“It’s the crux of the self-taught artist, at some point one has to do something new. I can’t always be alone with my idiosyncrasies. I always need new inputs.”
After his time as a saxophonist in the Swiss jazz scene and after musical encounters with greats such as Irène Schweitzer or Urs Voerkel, for example, a change was needed.
From improvisation to composition
“I always and only improvised freely, going into free jazz to some extent. But at some point that no longer satisfied me, as there was this danger to go round in circles, without getting any further and only ever come up with the same things.” In contrast to the many irretrievable moments of improvised music, Gallio wanted to create something that could be repeated – and began composing. At first, he mainly wrote for his own band projects, such as the trio Day&Taxi, which has been with him for 35 years. Over time, commissioned works for other artists were added.
On Day&Taxi‘s 2019 album Devotion, poems by Friederike Mayröcker served as a source of inspiration for Christoph Gallio, with bassist Silvan Jeger taking on the vocal part.
Merging miniatures into a whole
Christoph Gallio prefers to use texts as starting point for his music – especially poetry, for example by Robert Filliou or Gertrude Stein.
“If I have a text as a basis, it just works. Without a text, it’s much more difficult for me to compose.”
In the piece The Ocarina Chapter for string trio and voice, which the Mondrian Ensemble premiered with baritone Robin Adams in June 2022, one characteristic of Gallio’s music is particularly evident: his work with miniatures. These arise from his preference for short, lyrical, often humorous texts, which inspire his compositions.
“What I like about small pieces is the seemingly unimportant, the everyday. Why not do funny things too, why not bring humour into the music, why is most music so strict and serious, why do certain people who make music take themselves so seriously?”
In The Ocarina Chapter (2021), Christoph Gallio brings together poems by Annina Luzie Schmid (*1983), Markus Stegmann (*1962) and Peter Z Herzog (*1950).
Each miniature is a picture in its own right
In The Ocarina Chapter, thirty miniatures, some purely instrumental, others with words set to music, are put together in a sequence of almost forty minutes. The rapid changes this requires are a particular challenge for the performers.
“The musicians have to practise a lot with these miniatures. Each one being a picture in its own right. One has to be sung one way, the next differently, there has to be shouting, then whispering, without much transition time in between.”
Freedom for interpreters
Christoph Gallio finds the right sequence for the individual sections by putting the pre-sketched miniatures together differently on the computer until everything sounds right. The space between the individual parts is also important in order to create the desired effect. Particularly in those places, Gallio does not dictate everything to the performers of his pieces for the performance, but leaves the exact arrangement up to them.
At the premiere of The Ocarina Chapter, violinist Ivana Pristašová specified the length of the pause between the sections. “Ivana simply conducted it and made decisions about how long the ensemble should wait and when it should continue, showing the right instinct.”
The volume levels are not notated in the composition either; the ensemble had to make its own decisions about the piece’s dynamics.
“I want to give the musicians a lot of freedom in the hope that they will enjoy the piece. This works fully when they realise to have the freedom and the opportunity to work it out the way they please.”
Needless to say, Christoph Gallio takes the same kind of freedom for himself again and again on his journey.
Friederike Kenneweg
Robin Adams, DAY&TAXI, Silvan Jeger, Gerry Hemingway, PERCASO, Ivana Pristašová, Irène Schweitzer, Urs Voerkel, Annina Luzie Schmid, Markus Stegmann, Friederike Mayröcker
neo-profile:
Christoph Gallio, Petra Ackermann, Karolina Öhman, Mondrian Ensemble
(Deutsch) Contrechamps Genève feiert das Hören
Contrechamps Genève celebrates listening: partage ton Vinyle!
A busy season with numerous highlights just started for Ensemble Contrechamps Genève. The programme represents the new direction of Geneva’s most important ensemble for contemporary music under the artistic direction of percussionist Serge Vuille. He took over five years ago and has since radically reshaped the ensemble’s DNA. Conversation with Serge Vuille:
Gabrielle Weber
Contrechamps performs in Geneva’s Victoria Hall, opens the Biennale Musica Venezia as well as Sonic Matter Zurich festivals or simply invites you – without giving a concert – to a vinyl and neo.mx3.ch release listening weekend in Geneva. The different events are characteristic of the new direction of this long-established ensemble under the direction of Serge Vuille.
“Contrechamps seeks balance between different musical practices,” Vuille explains. On one hand, there are concerts with instrumental music for large ensembles, often linked to composers and Switzerland’s French-speaking young music scene; on the other hand, there are projects in connection with other disciplines and musical genres, in combination with visual and performative music, electronics, pop or jazz. Vuille is always interested in very special listening experiences.
The first part was represented at the beginning of the season by a concert to mark the 65th birthday of Geneva composer Michael Jarrell, with a “traditional”, conducted concert for large ensembles in Victoria Hall. Contrechamps commissioned seven new short pieces from its students. “We are thereby supporting and promoting the regional creative scene, which is an important objective for us,” says Vuille.
At the end of 2022, a tribute to Éric Gaudibert had taken place, Gaudibert was a composer from Lausanne who died ten years ago and had a significant influence on the scene. In addition to Gaudibert, 22 new pieces by former students had been performed, miniatures lasting only around one minute each, with very different, freely chosen instrumentation.
Éric Gaudibert, Skript, pour vibraphone et ensemble, Contrechamps, Bâtiment des Forces Motrices de Genève, Concours de Genève, 2009, in house-production SRG/SSR.
In a completely different context and setting, for the Biennale Musica Venezia opening, Contrechamps presented GLIA for instruments and electronics, a work by US electronic pioneer and sound artist Marianne Amacher, who died in 2009. Vuille is also interested in the aspect of special shared listening experiences in Amacher’s work: at the festival opening in a large, empty and darkened hall of Venice’s converted Arsenale shipyard, the large audience (including the author), surrounded by loudspeakers, followed extreme sound changes by wandering around and with the instrumentalists playing on a platform, as vibrating sound sculptures, or moving through the audience. “GLIA is almost a sound installation, part of it actually takes place in the listeners inner ear vibrations, not in the room and it is not based on a score, but on reports from those involved, which demands a high level of creativity from each individual performer,” says Vuille.
Back to the Gaudibert miniatures: they can now be found on one of the new vinyl records mentioned at the beginning and mark the start of the new Contrechamps/Speckled-Toshe vinyl series, together with the Lausanne label Speckled-Toshe. “The 22 composition commissions, each lasting one minute, were an immense amount of work and resulted in such diverse works that we wanted to conclude the homage with a lasting object of this new generation. The vinyl record is the most suitable format for this: there is hardly anything better in terms of recording and transfer quality”.
Daniel Zea, «Eric – Cara de Tigre» for ensemble and tape, one of the 22 miniatures on the new vinyl, Contrechamps / Speckled-Toshe 2023. The story: Gaudibert appeared to Zea in a dream shortly after his death as a laughing tiger: he cried for a long time afterwards between grief and joy.
For the vinyl launch, Contrechamps invited guests to a special listening experience: at les 6 toits, a trendy Geneva cultural centre on a former industrial wasteland, the public could listen to the new vinyl releases as well as its own favourite records in listening lounges during an entire weekend. The newly released Contrechamps audio archive on neo.mx3.ch was also celebrated with a vernissage and there were also live recordings and radio broadcasts on RTS as well as SRF2Kultur about listening and recording contemporary music.
Like vinyl, the SRG online platform stands for a way of listening and a care in production: “There is a link between the two, as they give contemporary music visibility and duration – through both meticulous new editions as well as maintenance of historical archives”.
The platform for Swiss contemporary music also features numerous rarely performed works with unusual instrumentation, such as Michael Jarrell’s Droben schmettert ein greller Stein from 2001 for double bass, ensemble and electronics.
Contrechamps recorded Jarrells piece 2005 in tthe Ansermet radio studio under the direction of George Benjamin, in-house production SRG/SSR.
Contrechamps is gradually opening up the extensive radio archive, going back to the earliest recordings of 1986. It is important that such platforms exist and are appreciated. Many of the pieces cannot be heard anywhere else: that is unique,” states Serge Vuille.
Feux by Caroline Charrière, is another piece to be discovered. Born in Fribourg in 1960, the composer Charrière died young, in 2018, and Contrechamps is committed to her work, as Vuille is also keen to give more visibility to the work of female composers and contribute to a better gender balance in contemporary music.
Feux for Flöte, Clarinette, Marimba and Strings by Caroline Charrière, under the dircetion of Kaziboni Vimbayi, performed by Contrechamps 2019 at Victoria Hall Geneva, in-house production SRG/SSR.
At the opening concert of this year’s Sonic matter festival in Zurich, Contrechamps will present new pieces by three female composers from the Middle East for small electronic ensemble. Vuille’s other passions come together here: “I’ve been very interested in the Middle Eastern scene for a long time. It is very lively in terms of creation, especially in regard of electronics”. The fact that Sonic Matter is collaborating with the guest festival Irtijal from Bejrut this year is an excellent opportunity for the first collaboration and certainly also for unique listening experiences.
Gabrielle Weber
mentioned concerts:
Festival Sonic Matter: Becoming / Contrechamps 30.11.2023, 19h (introduction 18h)
Biennale Musica Venezia, Maryanna Amacher, GLIA / Contrechamps, 16.10.2023
Genève, Les 6 toits: Contrechamps: Partage ton Vinyle!, 20-22.10.2023
Speckled-Toshe; Contrechamps/Speckled-Toshe:
1.Vinyl: 22 Miniatures en hommage à Éric Gaudibert
2.Vinyl: Benoit Moreau, Les mortes
Sonic matter, Nilufar Habibian, Irtijal, les 6 toits
broadcasts SRF Kultur:
Musik unserer Zeit, 18.10/21.10.23: Partage ton Vinyle! Ensemble Contrechamps Genève feiert das Hören, Redaktion Gabrielle Weber
neoblog, 7.12.22: Communiquer au-delà de la musique, Autorin Gabrielle Weber
neoblog, 19.6.2019: Ensemble Contrechamps Genève – Expérimentation et héritage, auteur Gabrielle Weber
broadcasts RTS:
L’écho des pavanes, 21.10.23: Aux 6 toits, enregistrer la musique contemporaine, auteur: Benoît Perrier
Musique d‘avenir, 30.10.23, Partage ton Vinyle, ta cassette ou ta bande Revox! auteur: Anne Gillot
neo-profiles: Contrechamps, Daniel Zea, Festival Sonic Matter, Benoit Moreau
On the magic of collaboration
At Donaueschingen Music Festival 2023, ensemble Ascolta will premiere “Dunst – als käme alles zurück” by Elnaz Seyedi, commissioned by the ensemble in tandem with author Anja Kampmann.
Elnaz Seyedi’s portrait by Friederike Kenneweg.
Friederike Kenneweg
For Elnaz Seyedi, composing always means collaboration. Born in Tehran in 1982, she studied, among others, with Younghi Pagh-Paan in Germany and Caspar Johannes Walter at the Hochschule für Musik Basel and draws a lot of energy from the very different encounters and constellations that her work entails. Dunst – als käme alles zurück is Seyedi’s second collaboration with Ensemble Ascolta.
“That’s an advantage because the musicians know what they can expect from me and thus engage with my work in a different way.”
Happiness in search of sounds
This led to special moments of happiness during the preliminary rehearsals for Seyedi’s Donaueschingen debut, when she searched for the right sounds for the piece in individual rehearsals with the ensemble’s musicians. For example with percussionist Boris Müller.
“He kept pulling out more things like shells and stones and in the end the whole room looked as if it had been full of children playing for eight hours. I went home with material for three pieces. It’s just the most beautiful thing and gives me a lot of energy.”
Glasfluss is another of Elnaz Seyedi’s works that emerged from a close collaboration, in this case with percussionist Vanessa Porter in 2022.
Taking the risk of composing together
Elnaz Seyedi has a special kind of collaboration with composer Ehsan Khatibi, who also comes from Iran and with whom she has been friends for a long time. When they happened to be room-mates in a hotel during a visit to the Impuls Festival in Graz in 2019 and spent a lot of time together, they realised how similar their musical approach was and how fruitful their discussions about concerts and music turned out to be. Hence the idea of composing together, which led to their very first common project, a draft for a call for proposals by the Neuköllner Oper Berlin for a chamber opera, which had an astonishing impact: “At first we only had a small idea, but in three weeks we had a finished concept, including lighting and stage design.” Even though the draft was not accepted, a first step had been taken.
Honesty as precondition
With their draft for a realisation of Albert Camus’s The Stranger, in which philosopher Johannes Abel joined their planning team, they won second prize in another composition competition. While their joint composition ps: and the trees will ask the wind for double bass, Paetzold flute, violin, objects, audio and video – in which they artistically processed Iran’s socio-political events – was premiered at Bludenzer Tage für zeitgemäße Musik in 2021.
“We eventually found a way to be just as critical of each other as we are of ourselves. Our common work is based on honesty, which can sometimes lead to difficulties, but if we disagree, we keep going until we are both satisfied and in the end, we come up with a much better solution.”
In Die Zeiten – Versuch (über das Paradies) for baritone and piano, premiered at the Lucerne Festival in August 2023, Elnaz Seyedi wrote the music to a text by Iranian poet Ahmad Shamlou.
Working in new places
Elnaz Seyedi also draws inspiration from the various location she gets to visit during her travels. That’s why she is particularly fond of residency scholarships. The composer believes that getting away from everyday life allows you to suddenly recognise the beauty of the familiar that would otherwise remain buried in the daily routine – a thought that she incorporated into Postkarte (Moorlandschaft mit Regenbogen) , which was composed for the Ensemble S201 from Essen in 2016. In 2020, a residency scholarship from the Bartels Fondation took her to Basel’s Kleiner Markgräflerhof, while in 2021 she spent a few months at the Künstlerhof Schreyahn in Lower Saxony, she was amazed at how productive she had been there.
Her orchestral piece A Mark of your breath was inspired by her stay at Künstlerhaus Schreyahn – above all by the vastness of the sky and the landscape in Wendland.
‘Dunst’ – world premiere in Donaueschingen 2023
This autumn, Elnaz Seyedi is once again working at a different location thanks to a residency at Künstlerhaus Otte in Eckernförde, where she can bring her work to the local audience through concerts as well as film evenings. She also just completed “Dunst – als käme alles zurück”. For the concert programme Echoräume by ensemble Ascolta at this year’s Donaueschingen Music Festival, two artistic tandems consisting of a composer and a writer have formed and – with complete freedom in their approach – each one of them developed a joint work. The piece by Elnaz Seyedi and author Anja Kampmann for two voices and ensemble is about the aesthetics of the fragment and the transition between language and music…
…and who knows what compositional ideas Elnaz Seyedi’s stay in the town on the Baltic Sea will generate.
Friederike Kenneweg
Premiere Donaueschinger Musiktage: Saturday, October 21,2023 at 11:00, Mozart-Saal DonaueschingenEchoräume with Ensemble Ascolta: Elnaz Seyedi and Anja Kampmann Dunst – als käme alles zurück; Iris ter Schiphorst and Felicitas Hoppe: Was wird hier eigentlich gespielt?
Elnaz Seyedi, Donaueschinger Musiktage 2023, Ensemble Ascolta, Younghi Pagh-Paan, Caspar Johannes Walter, Hochschule für Musik Basel, Anja Kampmann, Ehsan Khatebi, Vanessa Porter, Ensemble S201, Neuköllner Oper, Künstlerhaus Otte Eckernförde, Künstlerhof Schreyahn, Bludenzer Tage für zeitgemäße Musik, Lucerne Festival, Impulsfestival Graz, Bartels Fondation
Sendung SRF 2 Kultur:
Musik unserer Zeit, 2.6.2021: Nach neuen Meeren – die Komponistin Elnaz Seyedi, Redaktion Cécile Olshausen
neo-profiles:
Elnaz Seyedi, Donaueschinger Musiktage, Lucerne Festival Contemporary Orchestra
New energies: Biennale Son brings sound art to Valais
Biennale Son will take place for the first time in autumn 2023, in Sion, Martigny and Sierre (as well as a few smaller venues just outside these cities) and provide the French-speaking part of Valais along the Rhône with sound installations, concerts and performances for over six weeks.
Friedemann Dupelius
The beautiful alpine lake Lac des Dix lies at an altitude of 2,364 metres, while its dam – at 285 meters above sea level – is the highest located construction of Switzerland. The dam is connected to Sion’s Chandoline power plant via pressurised pipes. Since July 2013 with no more water flowing down into the valley, the pipes have been decommissioned. Yet the modernist building continues to crackle, because of its aura. So much so that it came to the attention of three curators. Since mid-September, this power station is headquarters to the new Biennale Son, with international artists generating a new kind of energy through the dialogue between their work and the industrial architecture, supplying various locations along the river with artistic energy.
Biennale Son presents art forms that usually take place in Geneva or Lausanne as far as French-speaking Switzerland is concerned and yet there is a tradition and a small scene for experimental music here too. The association Dolmen has been active in the region since the 1990s, while the somewhat more pop-orientated Palp Festival is also known for its experiments.
Christian Marclay, Screenplay part 2, performed by Ensemble Babel
Sound-loving visual artist Christian Marclay also comes from Valais – as does Luc Meier, co-curator of the Biennale Son, who is delighted that he was able to win Marclay for the first edition of the festival in their shared homeland. The exiled Swiss artist is part of the main exhibition at the Kraftwerk with two works. Artists like Christian Marclay are the reason why the Biennale Son was created: “Sound and visual arts have been mutually stimulating for a long time,” says Luc Meier, “but this significantly increased in recent years, with boundaries between the disciplines becoming more and more permeable. This is also reflected in recent topics that spilled over into the art discourse, like tuning into other, non-human life forms or resonating with the environment.”
Sky-blue river, late Gothic organ
Engaging with the landscape and its changes is unavoidable at an art festival in such an environment. In Sion, river Rhône is still sky-blue, fresh and healthy, picturesquely embedded in the angular mountain ranges of the horizon. But climatic changes are also making themselves felt here, with the Rhône glacier receding for many years. Canadian sound artist Crys Cole, for example, microphoned the Grande Dixence dam and brought the sounding spirit of the water back into the otherwise hauntingly empty power station. On an organisational level, Biennale Son tries to minimise its ecological footprint in the Alps, by keeping air travel to a minimum and paying attention to electricity as well as material waste.
In addition to reservoirs and mountain tops with crosses, churches are also characteristic of the Valais landscape. “It’s a traditionally Catholic canton and more religious than other places in French-speaking Switzerland,” says Luc Meier. Biennale Son found its venues in some of the chapels and basilicas. Meier compares them to the power station: “Without wanting to sound esoteric, there is a kind of energy in these churches that can be transformed. Just as we can make the power station vibrate, we can also make the churches resonate anew.” The Basilique de Valère in Sion is home to one of the world’s oldest organs, with its almost 600 years of age. When Judith Hamann and James Rushford are allowed to play this instrument, the concept of “transformation” becomes urgent and tangible. “Who has been allowed to enter here so far? Who was allowed to make music here?” asks Luc Meier. “What echos will such performances have? In the mountains around us, but also in the social spaces that we create in the process?”
Encounters in the Rhône Valley
These places of encounter are still in the process of being created. The Biennale Son team is relying on a Swiss audience with a general interest in art and music, not afraid to make the trip to the Alps. At the same time, Luc Meier also sees the potential to arouse the curiosity of a local audience. The curatorial team has made sure that the live performances take place on Fridays and Saturdays, with renowned artists such as Saâdane Afif, Félicia Atkinson, Alvin Curran, David Toop and Kassel Jaeger performing in venues such as jazz clubs and theatres. Furthermore, for those who want to delve deeper into the history of sound-based art, there is an exhibition of the FRAC Franche-Comté collection from Besançon (France) at the Médiathèque in Martigny.
The Eklekto Geneva Percussion Center performs Choeur Mixte for 15 snare drums (2018) by Alexandre Babel. Both are guests at the Biennale Son.
Last but not least, the Édhéa (École de design et haute école d’art du Valais), in the small town of Sierre, offers an artistic bachelor’s degree specifically in the field of sound. Students and alumni of Édhéa are actively involved in the Biennale Son, both behind the scenes and performing: Claire Frachebourg has created a sculpture reminiscent of a boat or a mummy across the power station’s entire basement. Frachebourg recorded the soundtrack to the object during an artist residency on a boat travelling from Iceland to Greenland. Even more sounding water, even more power for the power station, which can finally and again do what it was once built for: Generating and distributing energy.
Friedemann Dupelius
Biennale Son, 16.9.-29.10., Wallis
The Biennale Son Podcast introduces to the festival program.
Podcast on Spotify
École de design et haute école d’art du Valais (Édhéa); Klangkunst-Sammlung; FRAC Franche Comté; Walliser Musik-Initiative Dolmen; Festival Palp; Claire Frachebourg
neo profiles:
Alexandre Babel; Eklekto; François Bonnet; Ensemble Babel
Like an “electrified string quartet”: Ensemble Nikel
Summer series on the Swiss Music Prize: No. 2 : Ensemble Nikel.
Vibrant and virtuoso interpretations of contemporary music form the unique DNA of Ensemble Nikel led by electric guitarist Yaron Deutsch (*1978). Nikel almost acts as a pop band and transcends the image of an often radically loud electro sound. Nikel is “radically contemporary”, according to the justification for the Swiss Music Prize 2023 awarded to the Basel ensemble. Gabrielle Weber met Yaron Deutsch, electric guitarist and founder of the ensemble.
Gabrielle Weber
What does the prize mean for Nikel?
It is simply heartwarming and rewarding to be noticed and recognized for the work you do. Especially when there is no application involved, nothing prepared us for receiving the message from the committee, making it even more special. From the most pragmatic angle the award opens further doors for us and allows additional means to fulfil large scale plans we have for our future artistic growth.
An ‘alternative chamber music sound’ mixing electronic and instrumental sounds characterises the ensemble. Let’s talk about the beginning of Nikel: How did you find your way to contemporary classical music with the electric guitar – the combination is not obvious?
Playing the electric guitar, I was initially drawn to rock and jazz, but I felt like a ‘copy cat’ of an American culture that is not mine. Then, in 2005, I came across a piece by Luis Andriessen: ‘Hout’ (1991) for saxophone, electric guitar, percussion and piano. It felt like a ‘eureka’ moment. The piece mixes musical genres and elements in an uncomplicated way. I found a connection to my roots and the European classical music avant-garde felt like a sort of homecoming. It gave me a kind of direction in which soundscape I wanted to go.
With Hout we gave our first concert in Tel Aviv in 2006 and its instruments became the permanent line-up of Nikel. After a few changes, we have now been the regular line-up for about ten years: Brian Archinal on percussion, Antoine Françoise – piano, Patrick Stadler – saxophone and me on the electric guitar. We inspire each other.
..and what does the name mean?
Three points: First, I didn’t want a music related name, then it should feature ‘metal’ as is one of our timbres and lastly, it is reminiscent of Israeli artist Lea Nikel and her abstract colour-intensive works. She was active in Paris and New York in the sixties and seventies and died in Tel Aviv in 2005.
It’s like water drops slowly gathering into an organism.
How come you settled in Switzerland?
The fact that three out of four members live in Switzerland has been decisive. I have always been a ‘missionary’ of non-nation related music-making and ensembles without national nor local definition: for me it’s all about working with the musicians I’m most interested in, who inspire me, no matter where they live. That’s how I got to Patrick Stadler in Basel, for instance. But our vision is international. It’s like water drops slowly gathering into an organism.
Starting from an invitation for a concert we get together. Our task as artists is to be fascinating, interesting and also good enough to create a demand. It’s about passion: as long as we are passionate, we exist as a group.
Your first performance in Donaueschingen in 2012 was legendary – this vibrant energy and raging virtuosity, for example in the premiere of Michael Wertmüller’s piece “Skip a beat”, is a lasting memory for me: How did the invitation come about?
In 2010 we performed at the Darmstadt Summer Courses. The new artistic director at the time was Thomas Schäfer and he wanted to present new voices in his first edition, so he invited us and our performance had a great echo. Shortly after, Armin Köhler, Donaueschingen’s artistic director, called and invited us to the festival two years later.
Michael Wertmüller, Skip a beat, Ensemble Nikel, world creation Donaueschinger Musiktage 2012
What did this performance do for Nikel?
Performing in front of a large audience with international resonance was one thing: a career ‘boost’: the familiarity with the international scene was very important for our growth. But Donaueschingen also enabled us to play four world premieres by four important composers who wrote especially for us and our instrumentation. We wouldn’t have had the financial means to commission such pieces ourselves. We have played these completely different pieces all over the world ever since. This mechanism continues by the way: when the festivals invite us, they commission pieces for us which we then keep in our repertoire. We always get involved in the selection process and suggest composers we are enthusiastic about and this enthusiasm is tangible during our performances.
Our memory tends to remember extremes
Nikel’s performances are known for an often radically loud electronic sound…
First of all, I have to reject this ‘loud’ ensemble definition as we also play many subtle pieces, quiet, tactile music. Probably our virtuoso quality leads to the impression: “the musicians can make walls shake…. “ (laughs…)
Masculine power, is not our thing. Our memory tends to remember extremes. But so much happens outside the extremes, in fact most…
We are like an ‘electrified string quartet’, an organism that works very well together and whose sound blends very well. We are able to finetune and find balance between loud and soft.
In 2017, Nikel released a comprehensive CD for the ensemble’s 10th anniversary – do the chosen pieces reflect the characteristic of the specific “Nikel sound”?
Quite hard to say, especially since the first decade was very formative so from a bird’s eye view the collection and curation of the pieces summarises our characteristics but once zooming in you notice that each work, though capturing predominant qualities of the group, still keeps our artistic character on the elusive end.
Stefan Prins, Fremdkörper 2, Ensemble Nikel 2010 (Decennial-Box).
You just got back from the Darmstadt Ferienkurse where you performed new pieces by Jennifer Walshe and Matthew Shlomowitz: what was the atmosphere like and how did it feel to be back at one of Nikel’s first important performance venues?
Darmstadt was fantastic: it was our fourth visit there. We played a piece we feel very comfortable with, both artistically and personally: an extraordinary collaboration of over two years with Matthew & Jennifer, who also accompanied us on stage. With two sold-out shows and a very positive review in the New York Times, it was a perfect premiere for the project.
Minor characters, Matthew Shlomowitz / Jennifer Walshe, Ensemble Nikel, world creation Ferienkurse Neue Musik Darmstadt 2022.
What’s next?
We have a new album (Radio Works) coming up with pieces commissioned and recorded by various European radio stations during the pandemic, including the Shlomowitz/Walshe piece followed by a world premiere of a four-piece cycle by composer Sarah Nemtsov for nikel and orchestra, due in Cologne and Essen with the WDR Symphony Orchestra. Our new season in Switzerland will begin in January 2024 with a world premiere by John Menoud.
Gabrielle Weber
Sarah Nemtsov, Tikkun pour orchestre, part 1 of the tetralogy, Ensemble Nikel, Camerata Ataremac, Ensemble Vertigo, conductor: Peter Rundel, Festival Les amplitudes 2022, SRG/SSR in-house production.
Kritik Darmstadt 2023: Seth Colter Walls, New York Times, 13.8.2023
A Decade, Decennial-Box 2017, 4 CDs mit Doku-DVD und Buch zum Ensemble.
Yaron Deutsch, Live in New York City, 2022
Yaron Deutsch, Jennifer Walshe, Matthieu Shlomowitz, Sarah Nemtsov, Peter Rundel, WDR Sinfonieorchester, Brian Archinal, Patrick Stadler, Thomas Schäfer, Armin Köhler
Schweizer Musikpreise 2023:
Grand Prix Musik: Erik Truffaz
Musikpreise:
Katharina Rosenberger, Ensemble Nikel, Carlo Balmelli, Mario Batkovic, Lucia Cadotsch, Sonja Moonear, Saadet Türköz
Spezialpreise:
Helvetiarockt, Kunstraum Walcheturm, Pronto
broadcasts SRF Kultur:
SRF Kultur online, 11.5.23: Trompeter Erik Truffaz erhält den Grand Prix Musik, Redaktion Jodok Hess.
Musikmagazin, 22.7.23, Carlo Balmelli: Ein Leben für die Blasmusik, Redaktion Annelis Berger, Musiktalk mit Carlo Balmelli (ab Min 9:40).
Musikmagazin, 17.6.23, Inspirationen mit offenem Ende: Die Vokalkünstlerin Saadet Türköz, Redaktion Florian Hauser, Musiktalk mit Saadet Türköz (ab Min 8:38).
Musikmagazin, 13.5.23, Schweizer Musikpreise 2023, Redaktion Florian Hauser, Musiktalk mit Katharina Rosenberger (ab Min 4:55)
neo-profiles:
Ensemble Nikel, Michael Wertmüller, Donaueschinger Musiktage, John Menoud, Antoine Françoise, Les amplitudes, Swiss Music Prizes