For 4-channel electronics (fixed media). Stereo/binaural version.
Commissioned by Dominik Susteck, funded by Archdiocese of Paderborn (Germany).

Premiered at Marktkirche Paderborn (Germany) on September 2nd, 2023.

Stereo version by Matthias Krüger.

* * *
"And yet nature has added hands to our bodies primarily for the sake of language. If man had no hands, his face would be formed like that of the quadrupeds, so that he can feed himself. (...) If the body had no hands, how should an articulated voice be formed in it? The constitution of the parts situated around the mouth would not correspond then to the requirements of the language. In this case the human being would have to bleat, to emit screams, to bark, to neigh, to scream like the cattle or donkeys or to roar like wild animals.“
(Gregory of Nyssa, Sermones de creatione hominis, 379 A.D.)

mens et manus (2023) // for 4-channel electronics (stereo/binaural version)

— 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.

New tracks tagged #ircamlab