qui, dove mezzo son...
for flute solo + 8 performers [fl. sax. tbn. acc. pno. 2perc. elec.gtr.]

PREMIERE: 6 June, 2014 at Musik-Akademie Basel by Ensemble Zone Experimental, Anja Brezavšček, flute, Mike Svoboda, conductor
SCORE: www.babelscores.com

'qui, dove mezzo son...' for flute solo & chamber ensemble (2014)

Colours are like memories of other colours - on Schubert's D545 'Der Jüngling und der Tod'
for string octet and fixed-media playback

composed 2014
premiered by JACK & MIVOS Quartets on 27 February, 2015 at The DiMenna Center, New York

'Colours are like memories of other colours' for string octet & electronics (2014)

1950-C
for solo guitar with scordatura

Composed 2010 -- Performed by Kobe van Cauwenberghe

PREMIERE: 25 March, 2011 at Exapno, Brooklyn by Kobe Van Cauwenberghe
SCORE: www.babelscores.com

'1950-C' for solo guitar (2011)

EXCERPT of 'Objets à réaction poétique' for large chamber ensemble (19 musicians) with quotations of music by Maurice Ravel and texts by Rainer Maria Rilke.

composed 2015
premiered by Ensemble Zone Experimental, Jürg Henneberger conducting

Excerpt from 'Objets à réaction poétique' for 19 musicians (2015)

Feuille volante (2012) for solo alto flute

Recorded live at Villa Sträuli, Winterthur, 11 October 2016.
Anja Clift, alto flute

PREMIERE: 3 May, 2012 at The Italian Academy, New York by Jill Sokol
SCORE: www.babelscores.com
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feuille volante - a loose leaf of paper, detached from the volume which originally contained it. This work is a moment's mediation upon the memories of conversations with Tristan in Paris & New York, and the influence his work had on me long before I ever met him. Many thanks to Anja for her invaluable aid in composing this work.

'Feuille volante -- hommage à Tristan Murail' for solo alto flute (2012)

presence absence, degree (2015) for accordion & electronics

Living-room-studio version -- performed by Olivia Steimel
NB. Soundcloud added a few clicks to this track somewhere along the way -- you can download a 256kbps MP3 from here which should sound much better.

PREMIERE: 22 January, 2016 at Hochshule für Musik Franz Liszt, Weimar by Olivia Steimel
SCORE: www.babelscores.com
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Presence, Absence, Degree -- after Francis Bacon: the essence of a thing may be arrived at through reductive reasoning – this work, conceived in Ljubljana, composed (for the most part) in Basel, and ultimately completed in New York. I have always observed that travel alters my perception of music, never more so than with works-in-progress, for which the relationship between one moment/figure/gesture/phrase and another is often highly abstract. In Switzerland, for example, I anticipate the development of materials and foresee their (subjectively) logical conclusion; in New York I am suddenly unable or unwanting to continue in this way, because, with a change in latitude the sunlight also changes, doors creak in new ways, voices that were close become 8-bit/11,025Hz (and vice-versa), etc. etc. and the abstract relationships between musical moments/figures/etc. assemble themselves according to an entirely different logic.

With many thanks to Olivia Steimel for her invaluable help in the composition of this piece.

'presence, absence, degree' (2015) for accordion & electronics

Soprano: Svea Schildknecht
Conductor: Cecilia Castagneto
neuverBand Ensemble für neue Musik
Live recording of the Swiss premiere at Gare du Nord, Basel on 6 February, 2017
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Preludio a Colón [‘Prelude to Christopher Columbus’] is Mexican composer Julian Carrillo’s  earliest extant work to employ the principles of the Thirteenth Sound, a system of microtonality which divides the octave into 24, 36, or as many as 96 intervals (as opposed to the traditional division of 12). It is among the earliest known works for ensemble by any composer to employ such a technique. Carrillo, who had not left his native Mexico at the time of the work’s composition, would almost certainly have been unaware of early experiments in microtonality which were being undertaken by composers in Europe and Russia at around the same time. 

Performance of the work in its original form required the use of a specially designed guitar capable of performing quarter-tones and a harp capable of performing sixteenth-tones. As neither instrument is readily available today, this ‘adapted’ version uses a standard classical guitar whereby certain strings are ‘retuned,’ and substitutes an electronic keyboard for the harp part.  

Despite Carrillo’s use of such a complex system, this prelude, scored for wordless soprano and five instruments, remains firmly rooted in the tonal tradition. Here, microtonality serves not as the basis of a new harmonic syntax, but rather, as a means of embellishing, of swirling and swaying around the persistent tonal centre of E minor. Its title makes reference not, as some have suggested, to the devastating effect that European colonisation had upon indigenous Americans (of which Carillo was a descendent). Rather, it is intended to invoke the spirit of discovery; Carrillo, in undertaking to explore intervallic divisions at such an extreme resolution, was embarking upon a great journey into the unknown.

Juliàn Carrillo -- 'Preludio a Colón' (1925) -- Adapted for ensemble by P. Clift

Estelle Costanzo - harp
Julien Mégroz - percussion
Flavio Virzì - guitar

Larry Polanski - For Jim, Ben & Lou - I. Preamble

'The more perfect is the more immaterial' (2016) for chamber ensemble

Founded in 2012 by graduates from the Musik Akademie Basel Contemporary Performance Masters Programme, neuverBand is a new-music chamber group that is devoted to promoting a broader appreciation of the art-musics of the 20th & 21st centuries. The ensemble endeavours to expand repertoire through collaborations with emerging composers, and to promote works which are rarely performed or whose composers are relatively unknown beyond the borders of their countries of origin. Since its founding, neuverBand has commissioned some forty works by composers from across the world. 

neuverBand often collaborates with invited guests, notably Mike Svoboda, Céline Wasmer, Svea Schildknecht, Anne-May Krüger and Marcus Weiss.
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Das Ensemble neuverBand wurde 2012 von Absolventen des Masterstudiengangs in zeitgenössischer Musik der Hochschule für Musik Basel gegründet. Die Kammermusikformation widmet sich der Verbreitung und der Vermittlung eines breiteren Verständnisses der Kunstmusik des 20. und 21. Jahrhunderts. Durch häufige Kollaborationen mit aufstrebenden KomponistInnen soll das existierende Repertoire erweitert werden, darüber hinaus liegt ein Schwerpunkt auf der Aufführung unbekannter, selten aufgeführter Musik bzw. Musik von KomponistInnen, die ausserhalb ihrer Herkunftsländer kein breiteres Publikum haben. 

Seit seiner Gründung hat neuverBand etwa vierzig Werke von KomponistInnen aus Australien, Frankreich, Südkorea, Slowenien, Schweden, den USA und der Schweiz in Auftrag gegeben, ausserdem Schweizer Erstaufführungen von Werken finnischer, französischer, slowenischer, koreanischer, amerikanischer und australischer Komponisten gespielt. Innerhalb kürzester Zeit hat sich das Ensemble einen festen Platz in der Szene der zeitgenössischen Musik in der Schweiz erarbeitet.
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Créé en 2012 sous l’impulsion des élèves du Master spécialisé en musique contemporaine de la Haute Ecole de Musique de Bâle, neuverBand est un ensemble engagé dans la promotion du répertoire du XXe et XXIe siècle. Les démarches de cet ensemble dynamique visent à élargir le répertoire en collaborant avec des compositeurs actuels, ainsi qu'à présenter des œuvres qui sont rarement interprétées ou relativement inconnues au-delà des frontières du pays d'origine de leurs créateurs. 

Depuis sa fondation, neuverBand est devenu une présence importante dans la culture de la musique contemporaine en Suisse ; l’ensemble a commandé et créé une quarantaine d’œuvres de jeunes compositeurs originaires du monde entier. Au-delà de ses concerts, l’ensemble s’engage dans la transmission et promotion de la musique contemporaine par sa participation régulière dans des workshops avec des jeunes interprètes et compositeurs. En 2016, neuverBand a lancé « Construct-Radiate », un concours biennal pour des jeune compositeurs dans lequel l’ensemble travaille avec un jury d’artistes de grand renom pour sélectionner un jeune compositeur/-rice avec qui l’ensemble collabora intimement au cours d’une saison entière. 

neuverBand collabore régulièrement avec des artistes invité(e)s, notamment Mike Svoboda, Céline Wasmer, Svea Schildknecht, Anne-May Krüger et Marcus Weiss.

Larry Polanski - For Jim, Ben & Lou - I. Preamble

neuverBand

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