Opera in five scenes for 4 singers, 1 actor and 14 instruments // Scene LEIPZIG // Commissioned by Ernst von Siemens Musikstiftung // World premiere on October 29, 2011, Theater Bonn

Robert S. - Leipzig

for 18 instruments // premiered by Ensemble Modern at Alte Oper Frankfurt, Germany // March 2015

coiling and swaying

mass:distance:time (2010/16)

thoughts move past one another sometimes intersecting and sometimes not:

(1) In Physics, mass, distance, and time are the ingredients for calculating force.  For me, they are symbols of aspects of life that fascinate me and that are unrelenting enough to conjure the energy necessary for composing.  Force is, for me, a presence within all three.  Within the corporeality of mass is a wonderful pressure (pressing in? or pressing out?).  Underlying distance is a sense of the magic of simultaneity: a here and there pushing apart which leaves behind the hidden, the shadow.  And in time is a wondrous sense of movement that we cannot envision but can hear in music: layers of nows bound to moments both seconds before and after but also centuries ago which whirl around us as we zoom in and out of different perspectives and understandings.

(2) A passing of remnants from Giuseppe Ungaretti in the far, far distance, hidden in the mouths of singers:
Sereno — Dopo tanta / nebbia / a una / a una / si svelano / le stelle / Respiro / il fresco / che mi lascia / il colore del cielo / Mi riconosco / immagine / passeggera / Presa in un giro / immortale

(3) A passing of remnants from Guillaume de Machaut’s Kyrie, hidden in the lungs of singers:
How far through history is the Messe de Nostre Dame traveling as sound, through centuries and back to my childhood when I heard it and never let it go?  What did it mean to those singers?  What does it mean to us as we hear it now?  Or as we remember it, not hearing it?  What is the force of that music that still haunts the future of my past?

(4) Clear Skies — After so much / fog / one / by one / the stars / reveal themselves / I breathe / the coolness / bestowed me / by the color of the sky / I see myself / a passing / image / Caught in an eternal / cycle

Karola Obermueller

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