Played by the Argus Quartet

Jason Issokson Vln.
Clara Kim Vln.
Diana Wade Vla.
Jo Whang Cello

Music For Strings No: 1 (Doors)

Michael Beharie, rehearsal excerpts 2019

"Mesh" (2022-2023) for ensemble and live-electronics, here live-performed by the Nadar Ensemble at the Concertgebouw Brugge on 26.3.2023 (Yves Goemaere, perc & live-electronics; Dries Tack, bass clarinet and live-electronics; Thomas Moore, trombone & euphonium; Nico Couck, e-guitar+FX; Pieter Matthynssens, cello; Stefan Prins, live-electronics, Wannes Gonnissen, sound engineer).

Additional samples from Rainforests in Borneo and the Amazon recorded by David Monacchi for "Fragments of Extinction".

Commissioned by Nadar Ensemble & Concertgebouw Brugge. Supported by the Flemish Community.

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Even though "Mesh" can be performed as a stand-alone composition, it was premiered as part of the evening-length project "Der Wanderer 2.0" which I developed together with the Nadar Ensemble in 2023. In the version presented in the context of this project, the audience is wearing headphones on which part of the soundtrack and amplification is played back, while other parts of the soundtrack and amplification are heard through the loud speakers on stage. This splitting allowed for an extensive manipulation of sonic depth, nearness, distance, foreground, background, blanketing and uncovering. The audience was encouraged to play with the headphones, taking them on and off freely, listening to only one ear, etc., creating their own listening experience.
Of course none of this can be replicatd on this live-recording, in which the soundtrack is rendered to stereo.

Mesh (Stefan Prins, 2022-2023) - LIVE

"What did you hear?" I heard my phone imitating a typewriter. "What did you hear?" I heard a voice message and thought about the people who listen to voice messages by holding the phone to their ear and the people who instead play them through the speaker. "What did you hear?" I heard that sound “is not the object but the medium of our perception. It is what we hear in.” "What did you hear?" Last year, I heard a performance of a piece by George Lewis that inspired me to write this one. "What did you hear?" I heard the sound my finger makes touching the screen (pıt, pıt, pıt) and realized this letter doesn’t exist in the English alphabet. I don’t know how an Anglophone refers to this sound. "What did you hear?" I heard the phone recordings I made of the detuned piano in Mete’s old apartment (the piano was there before he moved in and stayed there after he moved out) and thought of sending him a voice message. "What did you hear?" I heard that “sound is simply another way of saying ‘I can hear.’”

Quotations from Timothy Ingold, “Against Soundscape”; Ultra-red, “Organizing the Silence”

live recording from the premiere performance by Chicago Composers Orchestra, cond. Allen Tinkham.

copy-paste diptych

withouteachother

Trinity X - Forever (Faaino Remix)

Please, use headphones or good loudspeakers.

vacant lot (strange bird) (2023), for large amplified ensemble
commissioned by Ensemble Intercontemporain

Live Recording, Klangforum Wien

vacant lot (strange bird) (2023), for large amplified ensemble

My PhD thesis composition, Agnostic Ambiguities, is a personal reflection, a search; a search for profundity, for meaning, for spirit. Written for seven musicians of the Talea Ensemble, it is a journey of my own unresolved in-betweenness. Why agnostic? Because I dwell in uncertainty— not just in my beliefs, but in the very nature of my artistic and spiritual existence.
It took me years to finally accept this in-betweenness. I was born in Istanbul. This city drifts between worlds where Western European ideals and Middle Eastern Islamic traditions intertwine and collide. I studied at a conservatory that adhered strictly to Western classical training, yet as soon as I stepped outside, the ezan—the call to prayer—would fill the air, a haunting and beautiful reminder of another spiritual reality. These moments shaped me, creating a quiet dissonance within, a question that never demanded an answer but always lingered. I have always felt torn between full commitment and non-commitment, between structure and freedom, and between devotion and doubt. For me, a profound artistic experience leaves me with unanswered questions—questions that can only be raised by art and philosophy, questions of mankind’s angst, ambiguity, and uncertainty. Do they have to be answered? I do not believe so.
This composition, approximately 13 minutes in length, embodies these contradictions. It navigates the tonal tensions between equal-tempered (12 TET), non-equal-tempered maqam, and microtonal scales, mirroring my own inner dialogue. It is harmonically driven, with accelerandos and shifting tempos that resist stability. At its heart is a keyboard with pre- programmed sound banks that initiate the microtonal pitches/scales and electronic instruments. These microtonal textures ripple through the ensemble, creating friction between maqam scales, microtonal triads with extended chords, and the rigid framework of 12 TET.
My fascination with these tonal clashes is not just an aesthetic choice—it is personal. It is a way of reconciling the sacred and the secular, the structured and the fluid, the physical and the ineffable. It is an attempt to harmonize the echoes of my upbringing with the evolving language of my music. In this piece, I am not merely composing; I am searching. Searching for a voice that can hold all my contradictions, for a space where ambiguity is not a weakness but a form of truth.
Perhaps, in the end, there are no answers—only the resonance of the question itself! Ali Can Puskulcu
February 8, 2025

Agnostic Ambiguities | Talea Ensemble

Performed at the Darmstadt International Summer Course
Imri Talgam and Emilie Girard Charest

Ağıtlar
I Birinci ağıt (Kar gibi)
II İkinci ağıt (Söylenemez)
III Üçüncü ağıt (Yalnızlık) 

The title, which is in Turkish, translates into Lamentations. Subtitles roughly mean Snow-like, Can't be said, Solitude

Ağıtlar for Cello and Piano

Please, use headphones or good loudspeakers and PLAY IT LOUD :)

Outer Space (2018), for video, 4 performers, and electronics.
Based on a short film by Peter Tscherkassky (you can watch the film here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yASwqIWjaVI). 
Commissioned by Darmstadt Summer Course. Supported by Ulysses Network, co-funded by Creative Europe Programm.

Live Recording at Centralstation, Darmstadt 2018 
NIKEL Ensemble (Brian Archinal, Yaron Deutsch, Antoine Francoise, Patrick Stadler)
Sound Engineer: Alfred Reiter
Recording: Aaron Holloway-Nahum

Outer Space (2018), for video, 4 performers, and electronics [Please, use headphones!!]

Please, use headphones or good loudspeakers.

They left us grief-trees wailing at the wall (2020), for 9 amplified instruments
Commissioned by Ars Nova Ensemble Instrumental, The Riot Ensemble, and Wien Modern

Live Recording, Riot Ensemble, 12 November 2020, London

Music For Strings No: 1 (Doors)

Hakki Cengiz Eren

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