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Losing the Red Queen’s Race
2022
for orchestra
Basel Sinfonietta, Baldur Brönnimann
13′
score
A core group of the orchestra reads from the score, coordinated by the conductor. All others, the vast majority, are fully blindfolded. They imitate by ear only, throughout the entire piece. Each one of the five movements asks from them a different mode of mimicry. Once as quickly as possible, once in a chain, once in retrospect. It is a Race that cannot be won. And by losing it, the piece finds its ever-changing form.
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Mum Hum
2021
for clarinet, saxophone, 2 vocal performers
Wittener Tage für Neue Kammermusik 2021
10′
score
Mum Hum is a musical game taking the soundscape of an unborn fetus as its base. Immersed in liquid, the unborn is surrounded by the sounds of blood, air and digestion, originating from the body that surrounds it. Mumbled speech arrives only after being filtered through the thick layers of the carrying womb. The musicians recreate that constellation by imitating each other – via the mumbling and error-prone transmission of a tin can-telephone.
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Silly Empath
2022
for string quartet
Swiss Chamber Music Festival 2022
9′
score
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Flugmagnet
2017
for ensemble
percussion, flute, clarinet, violin, cello
commissioned and premiered by Ensemble Recherche
10′
score
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The Great Mirror
2019
for double vocal quartet
2S/2A/2T/2B
premiered by les Métaboles, Léo Warynski
as part of the Academy Voix Nouvelles of the Royaumont Foundation
12′
score
The Great Mirror recreates the making of the encyclopedia of the same name by friar Vincent de Beauvais (1184/94-1264, Royaumont Abbey). His struggle to contain all information about the world in a single work is what serves as the core of this vocal piece for eight voices. It takes its immediate surroundings as its content (local animals, architecture of the concert venue, singers, audience, local music history) and takes varying systems of order to structure them. By exposing the processes of memory and summary on stage, the mechanisms of history become tangible. They are flawed, but ultimately the only measures to conserve what, according to de Beauvais, is “worthy of contemplation (speculatio), that is, admiration or imitation”.
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Ping Pol
2015
Steel-string guitar with metal slide
premiered by Mauro Hertig
10′
Score
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Slope Motion
2017
double bass solo
Commissioned by Open Music
premiered by Jon Heilbron
5′
Score
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Liquid Contra
2018
for six speakers in three rooms
Commissioned by Bang&Olufsen and Michael Anastassiades
11′ (loop)
Stereo Version:
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Half Held Hands
2022
for e-guitar duo
Duo pereyra~santorsa
11′
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Die Perfekte Passivität
2018
Landscape Opera
for 4 performers
Commission from Festival Rümlingen
35′
Selected excerpts
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Cello Solo 2
2012
Premiered by Benyamin Ryser
9’
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Stift & Papier I
2012
Trio for free combination of 3 string / piano / percussion instruments; all musicians also with felt pen
Commission from Trio Onyx (Eva Boesch, Marie Schmitt, Brian Archinal)
7’
MAURO HERTIG 