After taking OUR EAR (2018) on their tour through Switzerland, Duo Klexs have reached the finals of the Nicati competition – with my composition in their program for the big day on Aug 31, 2019. If you live nearby Bern, Switzerland, please consider supporting them at the concert!
I am selected as a Laureate of this year’s Académie des Voix Nouvelles at the Abbey of Royaumont in France, which took part from August 25 – September 8, 2019. My piece The Great Mirror for eight voices has been performed by the choir Les Métaboles under the direction of Léo Warynski.
This selection goes along with a commission of a new piece for next season, which will be premiered at Royaumont in summer 2020 by double bass player Florentin Ginot.
I am very much looking forward to coming back to this incredible place and working in the historic halls of the Abbey.
There are four reviews published about my choir piece The Great Mirror.
Mathias Monrad Møller has interviewed me for the German edition of VAN Magazin, online magazine for classical music. The interview is broadly about my new book Höranalyse – Neue Werkzeuge der musikalischen Wahrnehmung and touches fields of crowd-knowledge, the problematics of score analysis and visions of the future of creating and analyzing music.
You can read the interview (in German) here:
“Ich hatte immer das Gefühl, da fehlt was”
I am spending three week-long residencies at the Institute for Computer Music and Sound Technology (ICST) as composer-in-residence 2019. During this time I am working on a patch for a commissioned work for Soyuz21 Ensemble which will be premiered in October 2019 in Zurich and Basel, Switzerland. Concert details are in the Agenda.
The software patch contains a pitch-control system where sound source and pitch control constantly shift between the musicians of the piece. The keyboard only uses live-sounds which is the sound of any one instrument of the ensemble or or the room sound.
The ensemble consists of Alto-Saxophone, electric guitar, percussion and keyboard.
After a year’s work with publishing house Wolke Verlag my new book on listening analysis is out: Höranalyse – Neue Werkzeuge der musikalischen Wahrnehmung. It is based on a long interest of mine in the topic and draws from the experience as a composer and my blog Forum of Applied Abstraction, which puts analysis of music into practice online.
It is written in German, but ships worldwide. You can get one at your favorite bookstore, through online order services or directly through the publisher’s distribution.
The Berlin based label Holy Geometry released a cassette tape of Cello Solo 2, alongside works of Marta Forsberg and Kajsa Magnarsson. It goes by “Sounds From Home” and is available now via Holy Geometry’s distribution. Cello Solo 2 is played by the multi-talented Benjamin Ryser.
You can get an earful on the label’s Soundcloud:
Flugmagnet for Ensemble will be performed by the formidable Russian Studio for New Music. The piece was originally commissioned and premiered by Ensemble Recherche in 2017. After its performance by Platypus Ensemble in Vienna in spring 2018, the Studio for New Music will give it its Russian premiere.
The performance will take place as part of the ensemble’s program Projection of the Contemporary Music – Switzerland, In the Rakhmaninov Hall, Moscow, on March 14, 2019 at 7pm.
See concert details
Journalist and writer Gisela Nauck has assembled a wonderful radio program on the seven landscape operas from summer of 2018’s Festival Rümlingen. I am more than happy to find my opera Die Perfekte Passivität prominently placed in several spots of her audio trip (in German) through the landscapes and sounds of the festival which took place close to Basel, Switzerland.
Composers, all with new commissions for the festival included Clara Iannotta, Manos Tsangaris, Peter Ablinger, Barblina Meierhans, Ruedi Häusermann, Mischa Käser.
Listen to the program here (available from Dec 29, 2018 – Jan 5, 2019)
Our Ear, a piece for Alto Saxophone and Viola, had its premiere on Dec 10, 2018. The brand new Duo Klexs are bringing it to live on their tour Nah und Fern-(Dis)semblables, for which they are touring through all corners of Switzerland. The video is from their concert in Fenalet-sur-Bex.
The dates of the the tour:
10 Dec 2018 Luzern – Kulturbrauerei (Kunsthalle) – 20:30h
13 Dec 2018 Zürich – Theater Stock – 19:30h
21 Dec 2018 Biel/Bienne – Litteraturcafé/Café Littéraire –
10 Jan 2019 Basel – Unternehmen Mitte
19 Jan 2019 Fenalet-sur-Bex – Jardin Cosmique – Symphonie Picturale
14 May 2019 St. Gallen – Newartmusic Contrapunkt
17 May 2019 Lausanne – Orangerie – atelier de Yves Dana
MAURO HERTIG 