ZEITSTRÖME FESTIVAL – Tage für aktuelle Musik | SONAR QUARTETT / SOFIA LABROPOULOU – works for Kanun and string quartet | Akademie für Tonkunst, Darmstadt, Germany | Feb 11, 2023 | 19:00
The highly virtuosic Sonar Quartet and the Kanun player Sofia Labropoulou present works by Dimitri Papageorgiou and Stefan Pohlit, which were developed especially for these musicians. The Turkish zither meets the traditional string quartet and together they promise extraordinary and exciting sound experiences.
The Sonar Quartet’s composition commissions are funded by the Ernst von Siemens Music Foundation. The concert is sponsored by the German Music Council as part of the NEUSTART KULTUR program with funds from the Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and the Media.
Program
Dimitri Papageorgiou (*1965) Oumuamua for Kanun and string quartet
Stefan Pohlit (*1976) eyéo (Streichquartett #5) for Kanun and string quartet
In collaboration with the Greek kanunist Sofia Labropoulou, the Sonar Quartet is developing new commissioned works by Dimitri Papageorgiou and Stefan Pohlit, as well as its own framework program that continues to spin the aesthetic directions of the compositions on the borders of improvisation. Against the background of the arithmetic tradition of the Aegean region, the focus is now on the development of a microtonal playing practice, on which the modern kanun (descendant of the Pythagorean monochord) is based.
With Sofia Labropoulou, the ensemble focuses on a personality who has translated the musical heritage of the European and Aegean musical traditions into a living practice. Papageorgiou’s and Pohlit’s completely different perspectives are flanked within the program by a separate improvisation laboratory, which transforms the purely subjective perspectives of the compositional styles in the mirror of the equally subjective “interaction culture” of the ensemble. The framework program is also based in parts on composed works of the Turkish makam tradition, which the ensemble arranges and alienates independently before becoming independent with the theoretical foundations of the arithmetic tradition.
With
Sonar Quartet: Susanne Zapf (violin), Wojciech Garbowski (violin), Ian Anderson (viola), Konstantin Manaev (cello); Sofia Labropoulou (kanun)
Program
Works by Stefan Pohlit and Dimitri Papageorgiou
Info
The concert will be recorded by SRF2 and broadcast on 15.2.
33rd Daegu International Contemporary Music Festival | Ensemble iiiiiiiii | 대구콘서트하우스 챔버홀 Chamber Hall | Thursday 25/08/22, 19:30 |
au moins … (Fr. for “at the very least”) occurs in shifting times. What happened and what happens at every single moment punctuate each other… In reconstructions… Glimpses of the past are brought back to the flux of the present… Fragile interpolations enforce some semblance of unity… Until something, almost spontaneous, changes the way we orient to sound… On time… and beyond…
The work was commissioned by ensemble iiiiiiiii, Seongmin Ji – artistic director.
33rd Daegu International Contemporary Music Festival | Ensemble iiiiiiiii | 대구콘서트하우스 챔버홀 Chamber Hall | Thursday 25/08/22, 19:30 |
The world premiere of au moins… (2022) for flute, bass clarinet, violin, and piano is taking place at the Daegu International Contemporary Music Festival (Cheol Ha Park, Artistic Director), in a concert that also entails works by Siho Kim, Simon Steen-Andersen, Caspar Johannes Walter, Alex Mincek, Yukiko Watanabe, Enno Poppe, and Eunsil Kwon.
au moins … (Fr. for “at the very least”) occurs in shifting times. What happened and what happens at every single moment punctuate each other… In reconstructions… Glimpses of the past are brought back to the flux of the present… Fragile interpolations enforce some semblance of unity… Until something, almost spontaneous, changes the way we orient to sound… On time… and beyond…
The work was commissioned by the Ensemble iiiiiiiii.
ensembleiiiiiiiii is an ensemble founded in 2014 to devote itself to contemporary music. ensemble iiiiiiiii led ‘iN International contemporary music festival’ in which composers, musicians and visual artist from six countries including UK, Italy, Sweden, Russia, and Austria participated and sponsored by AVL CF, Austria’s leading art sponsorship foundation, and the Austrian Embassy in Korea. ensemble iiiiiiiii pursues concerts and programs internationally, such as performances being broadcast on ORF Ö1, Austria’s largest national broadcaster. recently, we have commissioned a recording session by chinese composer, Z.Huang from solo to ensemble pieces and invited by various organization and composer’s group.
Premiere of “Synecdochai” for 15 performers (clarinet, trombone, marimba, harp, cello, yiayli tambour, oud, ney, qanun, Zarb, trumpet, electric guitar, double bass, piano, drums set).Kornilios Selamsis – conductor.
Commissioned by the Alternative Scene of the Greek National Opéra, Niarchos Cultural Center, Athens.
Program Note
The starting point for the work Syncedochai is the micro-history of the Notaras brothers’ rivalry over a woman (Makrygiannis, Memoirs), which evokes a series of interesting associations, referring to the various levels of conflict between Greek groups over the distribution of power. Rather than a description of these syncretic relationships, I aim at the structural level, creating superpositions of logical conflict through musical ideas of a heterogeneous nature. By avoiding a unified narrative and projecting alternative idioms of musical discourse, I attempt to highlight the fluidity of relationships between disparate materials and dispositions
The work is part of the Greek Songbook for the 200th anniversary of the Greek Revolution of 1821, edited by the composer Cornelios Selamsis. Over 30 creators from the fields of scholarly and popular music and performing arts engage in a series of bold musical constructions, songs and images.
The foundation of the project is the use of a series of anthologized historical materials (texts, scores or narratives) related directly or indirectly to persons and things of the era of the revolution – a fragmentary landscape made of lifeless ruins, around which the descendants build their contemporary superstructure.
Without, otherwise, any attempt to disguise its inherent contradictions, the musical material produced is aligned at the level of its sonic negotiation by the use of ten instruments of European and five of traditional music, in a confrontational scheme that aspires to render in a formal way the series of disparate currents that converged in the cultural and political melting pot of 1821.
The production is supported by a donation from the Stavros Niarchos Foundation (SNF) [www.SNF.org] for the creation of the National Opera’s anniversary programme for the 200th anniversary of the Greek Revolution of 1821.
UUDEN MUSIIKIN LOKAKUU, Oulu, Finland | Tulindbergin Hall | September 28th, 2018 | Even the sky screams sometimes too (2018) for solo accordion | Matti Pulkki – accordion
Even the sky screams sometimes too is commissioned by the Delian Academy for New Music with the kind support of the Ernst von Siemens Music Foundation.
Il Suono 2018 | The opening of the 3rd edition of the IlSuono Contemporary Music | Teatro Comunale Degli Illuminati | Città di Castello | Sunday, July 15 at 6:30 PM
Andrea Biagini, flute; Michele Bianchini, saxophone; Laura Mancini, percussion; Simone Nocchi, piano; Giacomo Piermatti, double bass; Theoharis Papatrechas, artistic director.
-PROGRAM-
Nuño Fernández Ezquerra: Invocazione all’ignoto (2018)* for flute, saxophone, percussion, piano
Luciano Berio: Sequenza XIVb (2002) for double-bass
Franck Bedrossian: La Solitude du coureur de fond (2000) for alto saxophone
The results of the International Call For Scores & Commission 2017, organized by Ensemble Suono Gialloand IlSuono Contemporary Music Week have been announced and I am glad to be one of the two winners of the Commission 2017 in a statement on their webpage and Facebook page issued on October 29th:
The selection process of the applications received for the International Call For Scores & Commission 2017, organized by Ensemble Suono Giallo and IlSuono Contemporary Music Week, ended, with the selection committee thoroughly reviewing applications by:
143 composers (a total of 278 works) from 34 countries
The selection committee went through a strong applicant pool, including a large number of exceptional entries, making the decision process quite challenging. We would like to THANK all composers who sent in their music and trusted us with it. And, feeling grateful to the large amount of interest shown in the call, the committee decided to offer TWO commissions this year.
SELECTED WORKS FOR PERFORMANCE
We are excited to announce the following works have been selected to be included in the repertoire of ensemble Suono Giallo and its concert programs for the following season.
due forme dell’insonnia (2017) for sax, perc, pno
by Marco Longo (Italy, 1979)
L’erotisme sacré (2012) for fl, pno, and elec
by Taylor Brook (Canada/USA, 1985)
l’œil brisé (2017) for sax, perc, and elec
by Yiqing Zhu (China, 1989)
Piccolo inventario degli insetti (2017) for fl, sax, perc, pno, and elec
by Claudio Panariello (Italy, 1989)
will the voice remain the same (2015-17) for fl, sax, perc, pno
by Charles Kwong (UK/Hong Kong, 1985)
STATISTICS
• 143 applications
• 10 applications were rejected;
-4 provided nonfunctional links
-6 submitted scores and/or recordings with composer’s identifying information (e.g. name in the score, soundcloud links)
• 23% of the applications were by female composers and 77% by male composers.
• 34 countries
Follow the link for a more analytical representation of statistical data. https://www.ilsuonoacademy.com/call-for-scores-2017
The work consists of a limited number of brief chord progressions that are woven, rewoven, and occasionally juxtaposed to form longer static moments into the structure. The reduction of the sound elements, on the other hand, is intended to shift the listeners’ attention to the inner life of the piano – it’s resonance, so that the music exists rather in the space between the piano and the audience.
Parallel Thirds: Polifonia in due | Duo Goliardi, Porta Theater, Athens, Greece. Time: 21:15
The premiere of my work Even the sky screams sometimes too (2015) for alto recorder and bajan, a commission by the Duo Goliardi (Dimitrios Kountouras — recorders and Constantinos Raptis – bajan), is coming up next week on stage of the PORTA theater in Athens, Greece (https://www.facebook.com/events/1539010826427835/).
The concert takes places within the frame of the concert series “Parallel Thirds” of the Porta Theater (http://www.porta-theatre.gr/index.php/el/trites-paralliles/153-polifoniaindue) and the rest of the program entails works by J.S.Bach, S. Gubaidulina, B. Bartók, J. Walther, J.C. Veihlan, and Periklis Liakakis.
PORTA Theater
Mesogeion 59 11526, Athens, Greece http://porta-theatre.gr, E-mail: info@porta-theatre.gr
Info – Reservation: Phone: 210 771 1333 | boxoffice@porta-theatre.gr
dimitri papageorgiou 