Aufnahme - Deutschlandfunk, Kammermusiksaal
Forum Neuer Musik 2022
Commisioned by Deutschlandfunk and financed by the E. v. Siemens Foundation

Ensemble Aventure
Andrea Nagy - Bass Clarinet
Wolfgang Rüdiger - Basoon
Delphine Gautier Gauche - Horn
Antonio Jimenez - Trombone
Nanae Kubo - Percussion
Alfonso Gomez - Piano
Friedemann A. Treiber - Violin
Katharina Schmauder - Viola
Ellen Fallowfeld - Violoncello
Nicholas Reed - Conductor

thanks to Domenico Melchiorre for the various Percussion Instruments, specially the Bassdesmophone

Cyanotypie (2022) for Ensemble

Poem by me:

Fly
underwater stars
the moon shine reflects
over a human eye

A forest of streams
running each their way
where multiples find each other
in partial embrace

Of their differences
symmetrical structures unfold
a gamut of chances
changes made real

On the branches of time
on the feathers of space
into the depths
under planets

Interruptions in the Hallucinatory Realm

Rita Castro Blanco (conductor)
Lucerne Festival Contemporary Orchestra
Lucerne, 26.08.2023
The initial inspiration for Ikone derives from my research into the legacy of Pavel Florensky (1882-1937), a Russian Orthodox theologian, mathematician, engineer, and prolific inventor who brings to mind a 20th-century Leonardo da Vinci. He made important scientific discoveries even during his years at one of Stalin’s labor camp but was eventually executed. 
I was specifically drawn to Florensky’s writing on the icon tradition. His essay Reverse Perspective from 1919 contrasts the concept of pictorial space developed by Renaissance painters in the West with the spatial organization characteristic of icons from Byzantine and Russian culture. The latter negates the linear perspective that, in the West, became the convention for depicting the “real” world. An icon, by contrast, becomes a portal between the viewer’s present reality and transcendence.
Early Soviet avant-garde artists like Kazimir Malevich derived some of their main ideas from their interpretation of the icon tradition. I discovered another inspiration for my work in the art of  Vladimir Sterligov (1904-73), a student of Malevich. In contrast to the linearity of Malevich’s Suprematist style — the most famous example is his Black Square — Sterligov moved away from its abstraction to develop a system based on quasi-biological, spherical shapes as he found them in nature. I did not focus on any specific painting by either Malevich or Sterligov. Rather, it is their general styles, and the conflict between them, that interests me.

I have attempted to transform all of these impulses into musical terms in Ikone, which lasts 18 minutes. The formal concept is related to the spherical geometry of Sterligov’s style. Instead of following a linear path to a destination, Ikone unfolds as a single movement comprising multiple parts that are repeated with or without variants of the material as the piece proceeds. The material in the opening A section, for example, is varied when it returns, while the briefer B section that follows is always the same. 
This opposition reflects the conflict between Sterligov’s spherical patterns (A) and the clear linearity of Malevich’s Suprematism (B). The proportions between and within these sections are carefully calibrated according to the principle of the golden section. For example, the A section is exactly as long in proportion to the whole duration as the ratio of the golden section (0.62). The sections are built like a mosaic. 
Ikone is written for a normal orchestra, which I use to reflect Florensky’s analysis of the role of light in icons. Light is reality in this mode of representation; all that is not light is not true. (Renaissance art, by contrast, defines objects by differentiating light and shadow.) By having the lower woodwinds and brass play at an extremely high register, I attempt to convey a sense of physical, heavy light. Higher string and piccolo sounds, in contrast, evoke incorporeal, airy light. 
An important musical inspiration is Renaissance vocal polyphony. The first section of Ikone (Section A) is organised in three-voice melodies — there are always three lines at work, which are developed to suggest a spherical quality. However, the harp is tuned microtonally to defamiliarise the sound so that it suggests a strangely parallel universe to the polyphony of composers like Palestrina. Instrumental doublings create varied timbral blends that are like new instruments. The music breathes organically, through crescendos and decrescendos and the continual spinning out of the three voices. Another feature of Ikone is the constant change of tempo though acceleration and deceleration, back and forth, both between sections and within them. 
Icons are like portals to transcendence. This idea inspire me to write a music that tries to dissolve itself in infinity, while at the same time not losing its own identity and uniqueness.

Ikone

Ensemble InterContemporain
Nicolò Umberto Foron, conductor

Premiere (live recording)
Friday 10th November 2023

60° Festival Nuova Consonanza 
Auditorium Parco della Musica Ennio Morricone

© Ph: Cantarelli Marta
© Archivio Nuova Consonanza

Seeds of Light

Sueño de La Libélula (version for Ensemble) 2024

for Urška Rihtaršič

Inštitut .abeceda
Festival sodobne glasbe .abeceda / .abeceda Contemporary Music Festival
Ensemble (.abeceda [ansambel za novo glasbo] / .abeceda [new music ensemble])

for microtonal harp duo or harp and pre-recorded tape

Urška Rihtaršič, harfa / harp

A harp tuned in 12 EDO and another in 7 EDO allow, through the pedal system, access to various microtonal combinations (1/20, 1/10, 1/6, 1/5, 2/7, 1/4, etc.) in relation to 12 EDO, establishing tonal centers and temperaments. The first and third sections of the piece are tautological, transposed by a distance of one tone.

GLASSSCHERBEN (2024) for Microtonal Harp

Life repeats what is similar, never the same. The repetition of the same material, slightly altered with each iteration, engenders the feeling of going nowhere, yet simultaneously, progressing. 

Recorded live on December 7, 2024 at MacEwan University, Edmonton, Alberta

UltraViolet:
Roger Admiral - piano
Chenoa Anderson - flute
Allison Balcetis - saxophone
Mark Segger - percussion

Recording: Nicolas Arnaez

This performance was made possible with support from the Alberta Foundation for the Arts

Slightly Altered Suns (2024) - for mixed quartet, UltraViolet Ensemble

La Tiza (2014)

for recorder, subcontrabass flute, violin, viola, cello. /
para flauta dulce, flauta subcontrabajo, violín, viola, violoncello.

Erik Bosgraaf (Recorder) + Ensemble Garage

Obra ganadora del segundo Premio Nacional de Música 2016.

Imagen de Francisco Tomsich:
Estudio de autorretrato
(desaparecido, documentación: 2007
Alquitrán y tiza sobre madera)

La Tiza

One-minute extracts of Stroma's live concerts.

Wind, Rain & Light


Toru Takemitsu — Rain Spell

La Maleza (2016-17)
for Orchestra

Orchester der Hochschule für Musik und Tanz Köln
Alexander Rumpf, cond.

Live recording of the premier during the Cologne´s new music festival: Acht Brücken. Musik für Köln.
May the 7th, 2017

Underwater Stars for Mezzo-Soprano and Six Instruments

Uhor