Ensemble Nikel: Thomas Kessler + Hugues Dufourt

Program

• Hugues Dufourt: L'atelier rouge d'après Matisse
  Auftrag WDR Wittener MusikTage, Felicja Blumental Music Center, Ensemble Nikel und Wien Modern
• Thomas Kessler: Oratorium für Vokalensemble und Ensemble

Cast

• Ensemble Nikel
• Cantando Admont: Vokalensemble
• Klaus Lang: Orgel
• Daniel A. Meyer: Produktion
• Matias Bocchio: Bariton, Live-Elektronik-Einstudierung
• Jonathan Stockhammer: Musikalische Leitung
• Aaron Holloway-Nahum: Technische Leitung Nikel
• Alfred Reiter: Tontechnik

The premiere of Hugues Dufourt’s quartet L’Atelier rouge d’après Matisse was a defining moment of the (COVID-related) move to an online programme of the Wittener Tage für neue Kammermusik in April 2020: Via video conference call, Ensemble Nikel broadcast from Neuchâtel, Bern, Mannheim and Kiryat Tivo’n with split screens and Pingpong Stereo. They played Dufourt’s echo of Matisse’s “large flat tint of pure strident, colour, where the impression of depth vanishes, relationships of position are supressed, and techniques of construction fail.” (Hugues Dufourt)

The electronic pioneer Thomas Kessler (Zürich Paris Berlin Nancy Toronto Basel) spent some time in the 1970s teaching synthesizer and counterpoint to Tangerine Dream, founded the Elektronisches Studio Basel and the Zürcher Tage für Neue Musik, worked with Saul Williams and many others. A mixer, for him, is “a monstrous machinery of destruction for the singular musical energies that exist within a symphony orchestra.” In his new Oratorio for Wien Modern, like before in Utopia I−III, he equips all musicians with their own iPad, microphone and speaker – this creates “a fascinating space music and at the same time a reflection on musical power dynamics.” The text was written by the remarkable narrator, essayist and playwright Lukas Bärfuss, “the whole composition was conceived practically simultaneously in mutual artistic and friendly collaboration.” (Thomas Kessler) We recommend taking an anticipatory look at this portrait of the unusual Swiss composer, or maybe Lukas Bärfuss’s acceptance speech for the Georg Büchner Award 2019 and of course, make sure to book a seat for the premiere of this extraordinary space composition in the Jesuitenkirche.

Produktion Wien Modern mit freundlicher Unterstützung von Pro Helvetia Schweizer Kulturstiftung

Produktion Wien Modern mit freundlicher Unterstützung von Pro Helvetia Schweizer Kulturstiftung