Die Klangkünstlerin und Vokalistin Thea Soti lädt uns zu einer persönlichen Listening Session ein, um ihre aktuellen Lieblingstracks aus der elektronischen Musikszene zu teilen. Ihre Gesprächspartner sind zwei aufstrebende zeitgenössische Komponisten: Matthias Krüger aus Köln und Jug Marković aus Belgrad. Sie diskutieren, wie klassische Musik, heutige Clubkultur und zeitgenössische elektronische Musik miteinander verwoben werden können, tauschen Tipps und Tricks übers Zuhören aus und wie man diese Erfahrungen in eigene Werke integriert.

http://www.matthias-krueger.com

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zum Mithören _ listening in:
1 - Lucrecia Dalt // Seca [No Èra Solida, 2020]
2 - Zoe McPherson // Taste [States of Fugue, 2020]
3 - MAAM // ki mé te én [ÈGMA, 2020]

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Soundartist and vocalist Thea Soti invites us to a friendly listening session, to share her favourite tracks from the electronic music scene. Together with two up and coming contemporary composers she discusses, how classical music, current club culture and contemporary electronics could be interwoven. Along the way, they share tips and tricks on listening, composing and how to integrate these experiences into their own works.

Foto: Taisiia Chernyshova

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Der ONpodcast bietet jeden Monat eine neue Perspektive aus der Freien Szene in Köln. Worum es geht und wer zu Wort kommt, liegt in den Händen der Moderatorin oder des Moderators: in zwei Folgen geben sie Einblicke in das Leben und Schaffen der experimentellen Musikszene und lassen mit Gesprächen, Geschichten oder Musik daran teilhaben.

Every month the ONpodcast offers a new perspective into the independent scene of Cologne. What it is about and who it is with is entirely up to the host: in two episodes they give us insights into their life and work within the experimental music scene and share conversation, stories and music.

ONpodcast #53 ElectroCute Mit Thea Soti (und Matthias Krüger)

EXCERPT #02

For large versatile ensemble (20 players).
Commissioned by Acht Brücken - Musik in Köln and Deutscher Musikrat.

Performed by the Klangforum Wien, conducted by Baldur Brönnimann.

Live-recording of the world premiere at Acht Brücken Festival 2022 on April 30th 2022, at Stadthalle Köln-Mülheim.
Recording: Westdeutscher Rundfunk Köln (West-German Radio Broadcast/Cologne)


✶ ✶ ✶

By the sea, by the dreary, night-colored sea,
A young man stands;
His heart full of anguish, his head full of doubts,
And with pale lips he questions the billows:
(Heinrich Heine, Questions, from: Book of Songs, North Sea, Second Cycle, 1826)

Stars shining bright above you
Night breezes seem to whisper "I love you"
Birds singing in the sycamore tree
Dream a little dream of me
(Gus Kahn, Dream a little dream of me)

… now it has happened. Nothing more. Just this, and in this way—now it has happened. If I should try to explain it, it means that that happening which gave rise to my cry has only now, with the rejoinder, really and undoubtedly happened.
(Original Remembrance, from: Dialogue, 1929, Martin Buber)

The two Voyager spacecraft are bound for the stars. Affixed to each is a gold-plated copper phonograph record with a cartridge and stylus and, on the aluminum record jacket, instructions for use. We sent something about our genes, something about our brains, and something about our libraries to other beings who might sail the sea of interstellar space. But we didn’t want to send primarily scientific information. […] Instead we wanted to tell those other beings something about what seems unique about ourselves.
(Carl Sagan, Cosmos, 1980)

“Oh solve me the riddle of Life,
The torturing, deathless riddle
Which has cracked so many heads, […]
Poor, perspiring heads of people—
Tell me, what is Man? And what's his meaning?
Where does he come from? Where is he going?
Who dwells up there among the golden stars?”

Say "Night-ie night" and kiss me
Just hold me tight and tell me you'll miss me
While I'm alone and blue as can be
Dream a little dream of me

But now something happened with me. As though I had till now had no other access from the world to sensation save that of the ear and now discovered myself as a being simply equipped with senses, both those clothed in the bodily organs and the naked senses, so I exposed myself to the distance, open to all sensation and perception.

Although the recipients may not know any languages of the Earth, we included greetings in sixty human tongues, as well as the helos of the humpback whales. We sent photographs of humans from all over the world caring for one another, learning, fabricating tools and art and responding to challenges. There is an hour and a half of exquisite music from many cultures, some of it expressing our sense of cosmic loneliness, our wish to end our isolation, our longing to make contact with other beings in the Cosmos.

Stars fading, but I linger on, dear
Still craving your kiss
I'm longing to linger till dawn, dear
Just saying this

The billows are whispering their eternal whispers.
The wind blows on, the clouds go sailing;
The stars keep twinkling, indifferent and cold.
And a fool waits for his answer.

[…] But the Voyager record is on its way out of the solar system. The erosion in interstellar space – chiefly cosmic rays and impacting dust grains—is so slow that the information on the record will last a billion years. Genes and brains and books encode information differently and persist thorugh time at different rates. But the persistence of the memory of the human species will be far longer in the impressed metal grooves on the Voyager interstellar record.

And then, not from a distance but from the air round about me, noiselessly, came the answer. Really it did not come; it was there.
It had been there—so I may explain it—even before my cry: there it was, and now, when I laid myself open to it,
it let itself be received by me.

craving your kiss (2020) // Klangforum Wien (Excerpt #2)

Excerpt from "L'Être contre le vent" – Composed improvisation by Matthias Krüger, performed by Adrian Foster (organ) and Matthias Krüger (electronics + computer-enhanced organ control)

// ORGAN LOFT MIC RECORDING //

Ascension of Our Lord, Westmount (Montréal)
March 17th, 2024 – 08:30 p.m.
As part of "La Semaine du Neuf" festival by Le Vivier - Carrefour des Musiques Nouvelles

L'Être contre le vent (2024) // Kruger/Foster (Excerpt #5) !!! LOFT MIC !!!

Complete recording "L'Être contre le vent" – Composed improvisation by Matthias Krüger, performed by Tobias Hagedorn (manual organ control) and Matthias Krüger (live-electronic processing + computer-enabled organ control)

Voice recording by Constance de Bock (Paris). Excerpt of "La Jeune Parque" by Paul Valéry (1917).

National Music Forum, Wrocław (Poland)
Live Recording of the European premiere on May 21st, 2025 – 09:00 p.m.

– BACKUP RECORDING – (official recording coming soon)

l'Être contre le vent (2024) / Wrocław 2025 // Matthias Krüger [elx], Tobias Hagedorn [org]

FRANCISCO C. GOLDSCHMIDT
...aún caen retazos de esos gritos… (2014) 
for amplified guitar solo
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U3RWfc96Iic

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Camilo Sauvalle, Guitar

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Recorded in Cologne, Germany.
Recording: Federico Gärtner

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Title translation (english/german/french):
...remnants of those screams are still falling...
...immer noch fallen Fetzen dieser Schreie...
...Il y a encore des fragments de ces cris....

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Notes (EN)

This piece was intentionally composed without a preconceived formal plan, flowing, step by step, like an open monologue, without a course, fragmented in disparate verses, looking to imagine the thin sonority of a disappearance through its persistent dissipation. It cautiously approaches silenced and renegade voices that, by all means, are still present. It somehow pretends to draft an elegy by evoking the vestiges of those who have been defeated. Or better yet, by allowing the little that is left of those vestiges in our obstinate un-memory and indifference come to light.

The piece was commissioned by Camilo Sauvalle Cárdenas for the CD "Guitarra de Latierramerica", with the support of the National Council of the Arts and Culture of Chile 2014. 

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Nota (ES)

Esta pieza fue compuesta intencionalmente sin un plan formal preconcebido, discurriendo, paso a paso, al modo de un monólogo abierto, carente de rumbo, fragmentado en versos dispares, y que en su persistente disipación busca imaginar la tenue sonoridad de una desaparición. En su deambular se aproxima cautelosamente a voces acalladas, renegadas e invisibilizadas, que por cierto, aún siguen estando allí. De alguna forma, pretende esbozar una elegía evocando las huellas de los que han sido vencidos, o bien dejando aparecer lo poco que queda de éstas en nuestra obstinada desmemoria e indiferencia. 

Esta pieza fue comisionada por Camilo Sauvalle para el CD "Guitarra de Latierramerica", con el apoyo del Fondo de Fomento de la Música Nacional de Chile 2014. 

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Vormerkung (DE)

Dieses Stück wurde absichtlich ohne einen vorgefassten formalen Plan zusammengefasst, wo es Schritt für Schritt wie ein offener Monolog fließt, der in ungleichen Versen zersplittert ist, ohne einen bestimmten Kurs, um die dünne Klangfülle durch seine anhaltende Dissipation vorzustellen. Es kommt vorsichtig zu schweigenden und abtrünnigen Stimmen, die mit allen Mitteln noch vorhanden sind. Es gibt irgendwie vor, eine Elegie zu entwerfen, indem sie die Spuren derer, die geschlagen worden sind, hervozurrufen. Oder noch besser, indem das kleine, das von diesen Spuren übrig bleibt, in unserem hartnäckigen Ungedächtnis und Gleichgültigkeit ans Licht kommt.

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Performances:

12.12.2019 / KARAK Art Lab & Galerie / Cologne, Germany
Camilo Sauvalle, guitar

22.06.2019 / Concert Hall of Cologne University of Music / Germany
Camilo Sauvalle, guitar

28.05.2019 / GAM / Santiago de Chile
Diego Castro, guitar

11.10.2018 / XXVIII Festival UC / Santiago de Chile
Diego Castro, guitar

09.09.2018 / AvantGarten Liedberg 2018 / Germany
Camilo Sauvalle, guitar

11.09.2016 / Kunst-Station Sankt Peter / Cologne, Germany
Camilo Sauvalle, guitar

10.13.2016 / Festival «Guitarras de América 2016» / Puerto Montt, Chile
Camilo Sauvalle, guitar

09.11.2016 / St. Heinrich und Kunigund / Cologne, Germany
Camilo Sauvalle, guitar

10.15.2015 / Concert Hall of Düsseldorf University of Music / Germany
Jürgen Ruck, guitar

10.15.2015 / Salón Azul, Professional Institute of Chile / Santiago, Chile
Camilo Sauvalle, guitar

09.29.2015 / Schloss Ebnet / Freiburg, Germany
Jürgen Ruck, guitar

06.23.2015 / Concert Hall of Cologne University of Music / Germany
Camilo Sauvalle, guitar

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...aún caen retazos de esos gritos... / for amplified guitar solo

Flûte, Clarinette, Saxophone, Percussion, Violon, Violoncelle - 2010

Le Dégel, par Devoir

Text: Goethe, Christian Schlegel et al.
Ekmeles Vocal Ensemble; Yarn/Wire

Fälscherlieder (2016)

I'm afraid of Americans,
I'm afraid of the world,
I'm afraid I can't help it,
I'm afraid I can.

-Bowie

Mum Tahtah Wooft Petebep

angelitos ebrios (o el brío)
(2016)
for ensemble

Manufaktur Aktuelle Musik
Susanne Blumenthal, cond.

May 22, 2016, Kolumba Museum. 
New Talents Cologne Biennale 2016

Die Komposition wurde durch die Förderung der Stadt Köln ermöglicht

angelitos ebrios (o el brio)

Francesco Filidei : ... And here they do not

— Composer —

Matthias Krüger is a composer of contemporary classical and experimental music. He has studied music composition at Cologne’s Hochschule für Musik und Tanz and at Columbia University in New York City, as well as French language in Cologne and Sorbonne University in Paris. He spent the 2021/22 year following the postgraduate Cursus in electronic and computer music at IRCAM, Paris. His principal composition teachers include Krzysztof Meyer, Fabien Lévy and Johannes Schöllhorn. Aside from his activity as a freelance composer, he is currently a doctoral candidate at Hamburg's University of Music and Theatre, researching on hybrid composition between music, dance and theatre. Between September 2023 and April 2024 he is composer in residence at Goethe-Institut of Montreal/Le Vivier as well as a Graduate Researcher at McGill University Montreal.
He has received numerous awards (including DAAD, Berlin’s Mendelssohn competition in 2013, Cologne's Zimmermann award in 2015 and Prix Chevillion-Bonnaud of Orléans 2016) as well as commissions and has had his music performed in Austria, France, Germany, Israel, Italy, the Netherlands, Poland, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, the US and Canada as well as China and Japan, including festivals such as ECLAT Stuttgart, Donaueschinger Musiktage, Warsaw Autumn Festival, Gaudeamus Muziekweek, Festival de Royaumont, Northwestern University New Music Conference 2014, Shanghai New Music Week and Mallorca Saxophone Festival, and venues such as Konzerthaus Berlin, Palau de la Música Catalana Barcelona, Centre Pompidou and Carnegie Hall New York.

His first portrayed disc "ain't nuthin' but fairy dust" was released in the fall of 2021 and has been longlisted for the German Record Critics' Award 01/2022.

l'Être contre le vent (2024) / Wrocław 2025 // Matthias Krüger [elx], Tobias Hagedorn [org]

Matthias Krüger (b. 1987) // Composer

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