Ensemble Modern by Eclat Festival in Stuttgart 2023
for Nikel ensemble
(extract)
In Sonic Leak ist das Dämpfen von zentraler Bedeutung. Mit der Erweiterung der thea- tralischen Spielräume werden semantische Ebenen freigelegt: Verhüllen, Verdecken, Zurückhalten, Verneinen, Stummschalten. Das Dämpfen ist eine bekannte Spieltech- nik, die zur Musik gehört. Ich möchte ihr theatralisches Potential untersuchen.
for soprano and live electronics
Soprano: Youmi Kim
Text: Bernd Schmitt
Costume: Marc Socié
with the cooperation of SWR experimental studio & Freiburg Theater
libretto Pat to Yan
Director Thomas Fidler
Music director Detlef Heusinger
9th October 2022, Freiburg, Germany
with Opern studio MH Stuttgart
Director Bernd Schmitt, Staging Birgit Angela
Conductor Bernhard Epstain
Wilhelma Theater stuttgart
January February 2023 Stuttgart, Germany
Kassandra collective: https://kassandrakollective.wordpress.com/
Schmetterlingstraum for movingensemble and video
(extract)
“Schmetterlingstraum (Butterfly Dream)” describes an incident as the Chinese philosopher Zhuangzi is said to have experienced it: He wakes up from a dream and asks himself whether he dreamed that he was a butterfly or whether the butterfly dreamed that he was Zhuangzi. The musicians move in a field of moving images, observe and imitate them and interact with them.
In-visible for string quartet and video
Video Benjamin Mouly
premiered @ Lausanne Cinemal Bellveau
String quartet Camerata Ataremac
This piece focuses on the possible hybridizations and interactions between a string quartet – performing live during the concert – and pre-recorded video, which will be shot in another space and projected during the concert. We explore how the video and music can combine in each other, merge, or, conversely, appear in contrast. The music will make this crossing between the two sides of the screen, placing the audience in an immersive environment. We are trying to create a piece in which communication between each of these layers is possible. The sounds of the live strings will merge with those of the video, the audible and visible perceptions will become stronger and deeper. In the video, the captured sound and image will stage the musicians and involve them in stories and movements.
Ensemble consord @ Klangzeit festiva
The comet tails for prepared harp
This piece is for prepared and amplified harp. The articulation of the harp is the most interesting exploration of this piece, the jumping glass Christmas ball and pulling nylon strings both articulate on the harp strings and create a universal atmosphere, serenity, dream space. The piece should give the feeling of being far away. Such as the perception of watching the comet, which is for me a poetic contradiction.
Messenger for string-piano (prepared upright-piano)
“String-Piano” was the term coined for the preparation of the instrument for this piece. It is made of many nylon strings attached to the costume of the player and to the strings of the upright piano. The pianist wears latex gloves to produce sounds rubbing the nylon strings in different ways. The goal here is to explore new forms of relationships between the pianist and her instrument, taking away the hammers, which normally mediate the interaction between fingers and strings, using instead more direct action on the string, through the gestures and body of the player. As a result, the control of the resulting sound is flexible and unstable, giving an interesting relationship between movement and expressiveness of the pianist. Interview of Claudia Chan, Interview with Martha Willette
Narcissus & Echo
for soprano, alto, ensemble and electronic
Video Projection: Lukas Nowok
Costume: Rebekka Stange
Text: Wolfgang Denkel, Bernd Schmitt
I am increasingly aware of how much today’s echo chambers, the self-acknowledgment spaces are nothing but an update of the ancient myth of Narcissus. In the meantime, many feel that which questions and irritates their perception, as a fake, as a tremendous, unacceptable imposition. The echo chamber is the modern complacency, the modern form of narcissism. The narcissistic echo chamber, in which everyone only wants to perceive their own echo, is the subject of the piece.
Meine Inseln
for voice, drum, and electronic
or drum and electronic
Meine Inseln is a short theater piece about virtual relationships in a private social network environment. Sounds of the internet and typical social media noises are played by speakers and interact with the percussion and voice
Calling Sirens
for dance and piano trio
Dance: Sophia Otto
Trio: uBu
Choreography: Yves Ytier
Calling sirens: to summon music into physical existence, musicians let music gain power over their bodies, their brains, their movements. From here its power can spread into the bodies of those exposing themselves to the sound, entering, forcing its way through ears, eyes, skin and manifesting its power by shaping bodies and minds, pulling you into the underwater world of the subconscious, where fragments of shipwrecked form and thought slowly sink to the ground, illuminated only by the occasional translucent jellyfish.
Performative/gaming/performance
Your turn
a card game performance with audience
Performer: neue vocal solisten
Graphic design: Karin Kreamer
Regie: Thomas Fiedler
Your smartest choice
a smartphone game
for four musicians and an audience
Ensemble Mosaik
Web audio design:
Benjamin Matuszewski, Norbert Schnell
online version: Joseph Larralde
https://your-smartest-choice.herokuapp.com
for Cello+voice and live electronic
Soloist: Esther Saladin
for violin+voice and tape
Soloist: Natasha López
Text & Voice (tape): Jörg Zemmler