The world’s madness

Cécile Olshausen
“Sometimes I feel like I’m living on a train,” says Helga Arias and she laughs. The Basque composer was born in Bilbao in 1984 and now lives in Switzerland. She describes herself as a nomad, because she has been on the move since her childhood and lived in many different places. In the spring of 2020, however, everything suddenly had to stop because of Corona.

 

Portrait Helga Arias zVg Helga Arias

 

Hours of video calls

Helga Arias had actually planned a longer stay in the USA; the International Contemporary Ensemble (ICE), an artists’ collective from New York, having invited her as composer in residence. But she had to stay in Europe because of the pandemic and the ICE‘s musicians in New York were also isolated and could not rehearse because of the lockdown. This standstill triggeerd creative energies in Helga Arias though and so the work I see you for amplified string quartet and live video was created and premiered at the opening concert of the SONIC MATTER Festival in Zurich in December 2021.

As real encounters as well as planned collective forms of work were not possible, Helga Arias brought the ensemble together through video call. First connecting individually with each member, recording sounds and tones for hours, but also having conversations about art, taste, music and mental states. She assembled audio-visual material and then distributed it among the quartet’s members. Bringing them together, even though everyone was stuck at home. An artificial, but also artful form of communication.

It was only a few hours before the premiere in Zurich that the composer and the quartet finally met in person and were able to assemble the virtually created video and score of I see you on. During the pandemic, a creative and different model of collaboration emerged, one in which all participants, both composer and players, are artistically involved on an equal level.

 

Helga Arias, I see you, International Contemporary Ensemble, UA Festival Sonic Matter Zürich, 2.12.2021 / Sound-recording: Eigenproduktion SRG/SSR

 

Intoxicated by stimuli

Helga Arias is sensitive and modern, observing everything without ever ignoring the world, including the virtual world of digital media, when composing: Hatespeech, Me Too debates and Fake News are elements of her music. “Contact with society is very important to me,” she explains, “it’s called contemporary music, so it has to be contemporary. What happens in the world also has an effect on my musical ideas.”

In her performance Hate-follow me – world premiered during the Bern Music Festival in September 2021 – Arias mixes the vocal sounds of four sopranos with intrusive signals of mobile phones and social media rush images on video: spiteful insults alternate with intrusive body poses, a mixture of senseless seduction and hatred, accompanied by incessant vibrating, ringing, tweeting and beeping.

 

Helga Arias: Hate-follow me, UA Musikfestival Bern, UA 5.9.2021

 

This oppressive excess of acoustic as well as visual inputs ist the composer’s goas though which Helga Arias draws our attention to the waterfall of messages that pours in on us every day. Even if we could read one message, it is immediately replaced by the next. The individual piece of information losing its meaning. In the process, the composer condenses sound and image in a scary, fascinating way and one begins to suspect why hate news in particular spreads so quickly and so widely.

 

“So sorry”

Hate-follow me drastically shows that the unlimited space of the World Wide Web is not used for maximum openness and diversity. Rather, the perspective narrows when influencers and bloggers spread standardised clichés and cement old role models. Instead of celebrating differentiated polyphony, uninhibited hate speech silences many on the internet. Hate-follow me ends – after a mediatic collapse – in a torrent of apologies. But this is not conciliatory, for the thousands of them “sorrys” seem tacky and hypocritical. This piece is an astonishing paradox: Helga Arias composes music that won’t let us go, by asking us to turn it off. If we do, we withdraw from the madness of the world; if we don’t, we submit to it.

 

For Helga Arias, works like Hate-follow me or I see you are opportunities to reflect on her role as composer as well as her relationship with performers and audiences: “The performers of my music are not playing machines and I am not their boss telling them what to do! It’s about complex interactions.” Also with the audience. Thus Helga Arias does not and doesn’t want to convey a message. We listeners have to find out for ourselves how to cope with the contradictions and craziness.
Cécile Olshausen

 

Portrait Helga Arias zVg Helga Arias

 

International Contemporary Ensemble

On March 26, Helga Arias will be in Ascona for a conferenza-concerto as part of the Festival Ticino Musica.

Radio programs SRF 2 Kultur:
Musik unserer Zeit: I see you – die Komponistin Helga Arias, editor Cécile Olshausen, Wednesday, 9.2.22, 20:00h / Saturday, 12.2.22, 21:00h
SRF-online, 14.2.22: Komponistin Helga Arias – Sie macht auch Hate Speech zu Musik, Text Cécile Olshausen

neo-profiles:
Helga AriasFestival Sonic MatterMusikfestival BernTicino Musica

Out of the box

Interview with Oscar Bianchi, Artistic Director of the International Young Composers Academy at “Ticino Musica” Festival.

Out of the box: Bianchi@Musica viva, Munich, May 2018 © Astrid Ackermann

Gabrielle Weber
Classical compositions combined with trans-disciplinary formats as well as Dance build the cornerstones of the third International Young Composers Academy within the scope of the “Ticino Musica” festival, while Dmitri Kourliandski and the Ensemble Modern Frankfurt provide for international appeal.
In this interview, Oscar Bianchi talks about some defining aspects of the Composers Academy.

Oscar, three years ago you took over the artistic direction of the International Young Composers Academy from its founder, Mathias Steinauer – tell us about the innovations you introduced?
Since 2018 we have been inviting an established contemporary music ensemble. In addition, each year the focus will be on a different format. This year we will host the Ensemble Modern Frankfurt.

How did the collaboration with Ensemble Modern come about and what is this year’s format?
I already know the ensemble’s energy and commitment from previous collaborations, for example the project Connect in Frankfurt 2016, that was focusing on the interaction between composer, ensemble and audience.

“Personal experience is my filter to bring aboard the right partners.”

The ensemble’s members have a clear musical vision combined with stylistic openness, but most important they are curious regarding young composers’ works and research.

Two categories have been considered for the competition: instrumental works and multidisciplinary projects. There will be two corresponding concerts and we received over 100 applications. Together with Olga Neuwirth, head of the jury, 14 composers from all over the world… Taiwan, Iran, South and North America, Europe or South Africa have been selected and thanks to our collaboration with the “TicinoInDanza“ festival they will get the opportunity to work with dancers and choreographers. These kind of experiences and encounters lead to new perspectives.

“It is important for composers to think “out of the box”.”

14 composers are quite a few. Can you tell us more about workflow and collaborations?
(laughs) Not to mention ten further passive observers…
We explicitly focus on working as a group, which benefits both the music and the exchange of ideas and experiences. Elitist, competitive thinking, in order to elect a winner is not our goal.

“The key concept is “collective project”. Group over elite.”

There will be various conferences and lectures, from which everyone can profit, i.e. with Dmitri Kourliandski and other guests like Katharina Rosenberger or Michael Wertmüller.
Nevertheless, a particularly good composition sticks in one’s mind, goes without saying.

Ensemble Modern &Oscar Bianchi ©Walter Vorjohann

What kind of venues did you pick for these two different concert formats?
The “classical” contemporary Concert is going to be held in the LAC’s (Lugano Arte e Cultura) “foyer”, a venue conceived for various artistic activities as well as crossroad for locals and tourists to meet, whereas the multidisciplinary concert will take place in Mendrisio’s “Chiostro dei Serviti”, an outdoor courtyard.

Couldn’t this choice of a courtyard performance in Mendrisio turn out to be risky? The contemporary music community in Ticino is rather small.
The concert is scheduled to be part of the “Musica nel Mendrisiotto” festival, a recurring event that can rely on an interested and already established public, furthermore its visual components, as well as interactions with other art forms make it suitable for a broader audience.

“The contemporary music scene on a level playing field. That would be my dream.”

Concert Int. Composers Academy 2018, Mendrisio Museo Vela ©Ticino Musica

Do you have other plans and visions for the Composers Academy – where do you see further development potential?
Thanks to the support of the “Art Mentor Foundation Lucerne”, we have been able to invite a top ensemble and award scholarships. My vision would be to make the Academy available free of charge, including travel and accommodation, so that participation would be open to all. Contemporary Music is part of a restrictive system that can lead to exclusion. I’m determined to stop this kind of discrimination.
Interview Gabrielle Weber

Festival Ticino musica, Concerts:
27 Luglio 2019, 18:00, Ticino Musica, Mendriso, Chiostro dei Serviti
28 Luglio 2019,  21:00, Ticino Musica, Lugano, LAC

Synergies: Musica nel Mendrisiotto, TicinoInDanza

neo-profilesOscar BianchiEnsemble Modern, Ticino Musica, Mathias Steinauer, Katharina Rosenberger