Name: CONSTRUCTION [2023] by Emil Nilsson
Duration: 8 min 32 s
Description: Live recording performed by Curious Chamber Players

Live recording performed by Curious Chamber Players

CONSTRUCTION [2023]

dromo (2024)

What we’ll always have is something we lost in the snow (2024) for viola, soprano and objects.

Premiered on 11.2024 at the Festival Trieste Prima
Performance of this recording on 12.2024 at the Festival UdineClassica
Recorded by Roberto Borin

Performers:  Paolo Fumagalli (Viola)  Giulia Zaniboni (Voice) 


“What we’ll always have is something we lost in the snow” is taken from a poem by Ocean Vuong, in which grief and memory take shape in the image of the snow. The title of this piece already contains all the textual and phonetic material of which it consists. The text, in fact, is not enunciated, but emerges and dissolves in the phonemes of the letters in which it is immersed, through a vocality that is sometimes ambiguous, muffled, mimetic, sometimes pure and crystalline. The listening oscillates between the perception of the meaning of the text and that of pure sound, in this constant exploration of which the voice becomes the medium.

What we'll always have is something we lost in the snow (2024), for viola and voice

Performed by the brass players of Ensemble Musikfabrik

Trumpet - Marco Blaauw
Horn - Christine Chapman
Trombone - Stephen Menotti
Tuba - Maxime Morel

Knallerbsen (2025) - for brass quartet

Bagliori (2025), for prepared vibraphone

Premiered on 18.05 at Studiottantuno, Mantua 
Performance of this recording on 28.05 at Mantova Musica del XXI Secolo 
Performer: Roberto Enea Varalta (Percussion) 
Recorded by Lorenzo Arioli
Technical support and 3D print preparations: Fabio Machiavelli



“Bagliori” is a piece that reflects on brightness, transparency and shine. Sudden explosions of light find a musical correspondence in the sounds produced by metallic and high-pitched instruments, which create bright and shining sonorities. This exploration comes from the urgency to express musically a visual and sensorial world that I absorbed from the places where I grew up - in South Italy - made of rural and bare landscapes, bright, raw and essential.
In doing this musical research, I prepared the instrument, thanks to the help of composer and researcher Fabio Machiavelli, by incorporating supports for microtonal wah-wah tubes into the structure of the vibraphone itself and giving the performer the use of a mouth harmonica and some bells, which enrich the timbral palette.

Bagliori (2025), for prepared vibraphone

premiered 2025.07.31 at the darmstädter ferienkurse. recorded and performed by roan ma. mixed by charles anton whitehouse.

emellan - solo violin [2025]

Frangenti (2025), for flutes and double bass

Premiered on 21.09 at Bludenzer Tage Zeitgemaßer Musik, Bludenz (AT)  
Performers: Blaurenz Duo
Rebecca Blau: flutes, harmonica
Rebecca Lawrence: double bass  
Recorded by Christina Bauer 

“Frangenti” (“breakers” in English) are the waves that, directed toward the coast, break on rock walls, shattering themselves. These huge and constant movements of water shape both the soundscape, with their loud and regular deafening rumblings, and the physical landscape, patiently eroding it.
In this piece, I have continued the sonic research that is touching my latest works: starting from a visual and physical perception of some materials, I explore textures that take inspiration from the natural elements of the landscapes in South Italy that have surrounded me since I was a child.

Frangenti (2025), for Flutes and Double Bass [excerpt]

Elena Gabbrielli - Bass Flute
Mathilde Hoursiangou - Piano
World Premiere, Wien Modern, 02.11.2025, REAKTOR, Vienna

capriccio per gerhard richter (2021 - 2022)

Wolfram Schurig -  capriccio per gerhard richter (2022)
Elena Gabbrielli - Bass Flute
Mathilde Hoursiangou - Piano

Live Recording
Ensemble PHACE
World Premiere, Wien Modern, 02.11.2025, REAKTOR, Vienna

Wolfram Schurig - capriccio per gerhard richter (2022) - *LIVE*

Performed by 
Robert Ek (clarinet) & MalvaKvartetten:
Linnea Viklund (violin I)
Knapp Brita Pettersson (violin II)
Maria Jonsson (viola)
Maja Molander (cello) 

Commissioned by Scenkonst Sörmland
Klosters kyrka, Eskilstuna, Sweden, 22nd November 2025

CONSTRUCTION [2023]

Emil Nilsson

Related tracks