ensemble – electronics

PHACE | FOR MORE EARS!

our series at
Wiener Konzerthaus
2024/25

Listen and belong. The series draws the gaze into the spaces in between – where opposites overlap, where similarities and differences merge into something new; where identity becomes the plaything of the music. Echoes reflect on the walls of context, pulling on sound and material. There is no force without a counterforce and no form without transformation. Like with Annesley Black, where the smallest sound particles fight for a place in memory. Like with Giorgia Koumará, where the music questions our normatives. Idioms of spontaneity, burned into solid forms, striving for space: muted and suppressed with Huihui Cheng, agitated and exaggerated with Alexander Schubert. It is a galvanic bath for the senses and sensories. Something comes loose, something gets stuck and something is left behind. The voice emerges: instrument of the self, inextricably linked to identity. In Januibe Tejera’s sound unrealities it loses almost all human character. With Beat Furrer and Sarah Nemtsov it leads to the innermost and the outermost.

voice – ensemble – electronics

PHACE | IRRÉALITÉS / UNREALITIES

PHACE Series 2024/25 – N°2
11.Feb.2025 // 19:30
Wiener Konzerthaus, Berio-Saal

Programm

Januibe Tejera
IRRÉALITÉS / UNREALITIES for voice, five musicians and electronics, 2024 (UA)
Comissioned by PHACE

chamber music – electronics

PHACE | LIGHTNESS

PHACE Series 2024/25 – N°3
11.Mar.2025 // 19:30
Wiener Konzerthaus, Berio-Saal

Programm

Juliana Hodkinson
Lightness sound and light theatre for three musicians, 2015 (14‘)

Huihui Cheng
Sonic leak for saxophone, electric guitar, piano and percussion, 2020 (17’) (ÖEA)

Oliver Weber
INSCHRIFT II revised version for trombone, cello, keyboard and electronics, 2024 (20‘) (UA)

Franck Bedrossian
We met as Sparks for bass flute, contrabass clarinet, viola and cello, 2015 (12’)

Alexander Schubert
Superimpose I + II for piano, double bass, saxophone, percussion and elektronics, 2009 (13’) (ÖEA)

ensemble – electronics

PHACE | ACCESSING PLEASURE

PHACE Series 2024/25 – N°1
25.Nov.2024 // 21:00
Wien Modern, Wiener Konzerthaus, Berio-Saal

Programm

Bernhard Gander
Take Five for Nine for double bass, percussion and ensemble, 2024 (20‘)
Comissioned by PHACE and Klangspuren Schwaz

Alessandro Baticci
Luminal Mirage for ensemble und electronics, 2024 (13‘) (UA)
Comissioned by PHACE and ORF Musikprotokoll

Annesley Black
Scrap for ensemble und live-electronics, 2019 (16’)

Georgia Koumará 
I wonder if I should start accessing pleasure a whole lot for ensemble und electronics, 2022 (21‘) (ÖEA)

Musikforum Viktring

11.Jul.2024 // 19:30
Musikforum Viktring-Klagenfurt 2024
Stift Viktring, Arkadenhof

PHACE
Doris Nicoletti, flute
Walter Seebacher, clarinet
Michael Krenn, saxophone
Mathilde Hoursiangou, piano
Samuel Toro Pérez, e-guitar
Roland Schueler, cello

Duo So:und
Julia Schneckenleitner, saxophone
Katharina Wegscheider, voice

Duo Lufttore
Yingshuo Ma, saxophone
Piotr Motyka, akkordeon

Musikforum Masterclass Saxofon
class of Prof. Michael Krenn

Duo Krenn/Lavuri
Michael Krenn, saxofone
Luca Lavuri, piano

Rupert Struber, percussion

PROGRAMM

Mikel Urquiza
Opus Latericium for flute, saxophone, clarinet and piano, 2018

Mirela Ivičević
Lil for electric guitar, saxophone, cello and electronics, 2022

Jagoda Szmytka
F* for Music for electric guitar and amplified cello, 2012

The Spider as an Artist

23. Oct. 2023 // 19:30
Großer Ehrbar Saal
Palais Ehrbar, Mühlgasse 28, 1040 Wien

Entrance: free

PHACE
Mathilde Hoursiangou, piano
Berndt Thurner, percussion
Maria Chlebus, percussion
Roland Schueler, cello
Alexandra Dienz, double bass
Samuel Toro-Pérez, e-guitar

The spider is an aesthetically inclined creature. He constructs his nets from the finest threads and with extremely elaborate, careful detail to fit every corner precisely. As a solo artist, he sometimes takes idiosyncratic paths, deviates from the given pattern, extends a corner here or leaves out a thread there. But the result speaks for itself: a web that is not round, but nonetheless attractive from all perspectives.

It is precisely these complementary opposites of given structure and enriching deviations that come together in the concert evening The Spider as an Artist (mind you: not the other way around). In five solo pieces, the musicians weave webs only to tear them apart again, test the tonal tensile strength of their instrument, and exploit the possibilities down to the last corner. In the evening’s title work, Franck Bedrossian writes an invisible poem by Emily Dickinson, as transparent as a spider’s web, with the bow on the body of the cello, while Sarah Nemtsov is inspired by a poem by Anne Sexton for Seven Thoughts – Her Kind. In Christof Dienz’s Bass Surface, two players intervene in the solo performance of the double bass and enrich the performance with percussive elements, while in Alexander Kaiser’s piece the guitarist’s fingers scurry spider-like over the fingerboard and through shattered outer-space soundscapes.

The Spider as an Artist
Has never been employed —
Though his surpassing Merit
Is freely certified

By every Broom and Bridget
Throughout a Christian Land —
Neglected Son of Genius
I take thee by the Hand —

Emily Dickinson (1275)

PROGRAMM

Franck Bedrossian
The Spider as an Artist for amplified cello solo.

Christof Dienz
Bass surface for double bass solo with 2 players, 2014.

Pierre Jodlowski
Serie C for piano and tape, 2011.

Alexander Kaiser
WhIch is NoT for e-guitar and electronics 2022/23.

Sarah Nemtsov
Seven Thoughts – Her Kind for sample keyboard with voice, 2018

In the Blink of an Ear

3. Oct. 2023 // 18:30
SUSSUDIO
Wolfgang-Schmälzl-Gasse 19, 1020 Wien

Improvisations and Compositions
Free entrance

PHACE
Roland Schueler, cello
JSX, Turntables

“Excuse me, do you say in English, ‘I look at the window,’ or do you say in English, ‘I look out the window’?” In Jim Jarmusch’s film Down By Law, the Italian drifter, Bob (played by Roberto Benigni), draws a window on the wall of his windowless jail cell. Bob, who speaks little English, asks his cellmate, Jack (played by John Lurie), which preposition to use when speaking of his window. Jack replies, “In this case, Bob, I’m afraid you’ve got to say, ‘I look at the window.’” (Seth Kim-Cohen, ›In the Blink of an Ear‹) …

From September 20, 2023, the exhibition BLINK OF AN EYE can be seen at the artspace SUSSUDIO. It brings together new location-specific works by Kaja Clara Joo and Michael Kienzer in order to trace elective affinities and interactions and to create an exciting dialogue at the interface between sculpture and installation. As part of the exhibition, PHACE will connect with the works of art on October 3rd with a performance by Roland Schueler and Jorge Sánchez-Chiong in order to trace the above relationships and effects inside the sonic art space.

When In the Blink of an Ear minimalism and maximalism merge, lowercase and hyperpop collide, Schueler & Sánchez-Chiong are playing and listening, , to paraphrase Seth Kim-Cohen, definitely “out of the jail cell”. It is another facet in PHACE’s regular collaboration with Jorge Sánchez-Chiong and his incomparable mix of musical spontaneity and boundary-pushing understanding of sound – as a composer, on the turntables or in educational projects – and also a foretaste to PHACE | ANIMAL SMILEYS , our cycle concert on May 7th, 2024, where we will once again deepen our collaboration with Sánchez-Chiong.

In the Blink of an Ear
Improvisations and Compositions by Schueler and Sánchez-Chiong

PHACE
Roland Schueler | Cello
JSX | Turntables

Exhibition: BLINK OF AN EYE  20.09.—11.10.2023, Sussudio, Wolfgang-Schmälzl-Gasse 19, 1020 Wien

Festival Internacional de Musica de Canarias

Oct. 14, 2023
Espacio la Granja
Santa Cruz de Tenerife

Oct. 15, 2023
Teatro Guiniguada
Las Palmas de Gran Canaria

conductor
Nacho de Paz

PHACE
Doris Nicoletti, flute
Walter Seebacher, clarinet
Spiros Laskaridis, trumpet
Mathilde Hoursiangou, piano/keyb
Berndt Thurner, percussion
Samuel Toro Pérez, electric guitar
Jacobo Hernandez Enriquez, violin
Petra Ackermann, viola
Roland Schueler, cello
Maximilian Ölz, double bass

SOUND DESIGN
Alfred Reiter

Programm

Mirela Ivicevic
Case Black for 7 instruments & electronics, 2016  8’

José Luis Perdigón
ill-use III for bass flute, bass clarinet, piano, percussion, violin, cello and e-guitar, 2023 (wp)

Fausto Romitelli
Professor Bad Trip: Lesson I – III for ensemble and electronics, 1998-2000

Focus on Sarah Nemtsov

31. Mai. 2024 // 20.00
Graz, Kunstuniversität Graz,
MUMUTH Probebraum

PHACE
Ivana Pristašová Zaugg, violin
Mathilde Hoursiangou, piano/keyboard
Roland Schueler, cello
Maximilian Ölz, electric bass
Berndt Thurner, percussion

SOUND DESIGN
Alfred Reiter

eine Produktion von open music in Kooperation mit der KUG. Zentrum für Genderforschung und Diversität (ZfGD)und PHACE 

Sarah Nemtsov’s music doesn’t fit into one or even all drawers. Finely branching sound structures, peppered with countless signs, metaphors, phrases, symbols and influences from all imaginable directions can be found and yet the deep roots in the tonality of European musical tradition can also be heard. Not afraid of breaks and profound interventions in the sound, Nemtsov likes to use electronic means of alienation and artificiality, but also manages to breathe an organic liveliness into the music that can hardly be imitated. For example, when the fingers on the drum dance in a duet with a robot beetle in Bugs. And the composer does not shy away from something else: the big, the difficult and the unpleasant themes. Be it dealing with death, loss and memories in Seven Colours or looking at the contrasts in the reality of life between rich and poor, between the first and third worlds in Mountain & Maiden, where the piano, almost like a 21st-century silent film pianist, plays over beautiful images of huge mountains of garbage in the film by Shmuel Hoffman and Anton von Heiseler. Nemtsov doesn’t hide anything in her music, doesn’t sugarcoat it, she uses tones and sounds to focus on the core. Reason enough for a closer look at the outstanding work of one of the most exciting composers of our time and a focus on Sarah Nemtsov.

PROGRAMM 

Sechs Zeichen for cello und (prepared) piano, 2010. 8′

Seven Colours for amplified cello, electric bass, prepared piano and sampler, drum set und electronics, 2018 D: 15‘

Bugs – study for snare, mini robot, hands and amplification, as well as live video ad libitum, 2021. 5′

Kadosh  for (amplified) violin solo (with effect pedals), 2021 14′

Mountain & Maiden
a Film by Shmuel Hoffman & Anton von Heiseler
with a composition by Sarah Nemtsov for keyboard solo (with amplified piano and voice), 2019 d: 24′

Im Bett des Imaginariums

26.Mar.2024 // 20:00
Osterfestival Tirol
Hall i.Tt, Salzlager

26.Jun.2023, REAKTOR, Wien

büro lunaire
Gina Mattiello, text, voice
Reinhold Schinwald, sound design, live electronics
Florian Kindlinger, Sound

PHACE
Ivana Pristašová Zaugg, violin
Petra Ackermann, viola
Roland Schueler, cello

Eine Produktion von büro lunaire in Kooperation mit PHACE und Osterfestival Tirol .

The text of the live radio play is an attempt of poetic intensification in the form of footnotes. The author moves in space around a Kunstkopf-microphone while speaking the text. The recordings are played to the audience in real time via wireless headphones. Consequently, the audience not only perceive the text from the narrator’s perspective, but also immerse into an interplay between closeness and distance, interior and exterior perception, as well as real and artificial spaces. Remains of landscapes emerge, memory particles, day or night dreams: fragments rushing away in different directions. The language oscillates between what the author perceives, as well as objets trouvés from thevisual arts, literature and philosophy. The compositions for string instruments and live electronics woven into the text allow the literary fragments to grow into the imaginary.

​

Program

Christoph Herndler
Abschreiben (2005) Streichtrio

Clara Iannotta
dead wasps in the jam jar (2014-2015) Violine

Reinhold Schinwald
empreintes III (UA, 2023) Streichtrio und Live-Elektronik

Franck Bedrossian
The Spider as an Artist (2014) Violoncello und Verstärkung

Klaus Lang
die ränder der welt (2005) Violine

Enno Poppe
Fingernagel (2009) Violine und Viola

Rebecca Saunders
hauch (2018) Violine

Gérman Toro Pérez
Rulfo / ecos II (2006) Streichtrio und Live-Elektronik