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

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)

voices & ensemble

PHACE | AKUSMATA

PHACE Series 2024/25 – N°4
4.May.2025 // 19:30
Wiener Konzerthaus, Mozart Saal

Programm

Beat Furrer
Akusmata for 8 voices und 8 instruments (30’) (2019/20)

Sarah Nemtsov
WAVES for vocal ensemble and instruments (30‘) (2024/25)
ein Comissioned by PHACE, in cooperation with Osterfestival Tirol

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

PHACE | ANIMAL SMILEYS

7.May.2024 // 19:30
Wiener Konzerthaus, Berio-Saal

PHACE Series 23/24 – N°3

PROGRAMM

Sarah Nemtsov
Sechs Zeichen for cello und (prepared) piano, 2010

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

Katharina Rosenberger
wälzen, schieben, frachten for string trio and Turntables (wp), 2023/24
Comissioned by PHACE, with support of the Swiss art council Pro Helvetia

Victor Ibarra
B-side for saxophone, percussion and piano (wp), 2023/24
Comissioned by  PHACE, funded by Sistema Nacional de Creadores de Arte (FONCA) Mexico

Jorge Sanchez-Chiong
Animal Smileys for string trio, electric organ, mid-0 equipment & psychedelic electronics, 2022/24
wp of the new version

Opus Latericium is inspired by a Roman adobe construction of the imperial period. Triangular bricks, united to a dotted, polished, hard and refractory surface: from the outside, the repetitive music of Mikel Urquiza destructively hammers in time-lapse the hard shell, exposes the ruin. What remains of the wall shows little resemblance to the beginning. Fractured and weathered, a scattered remnant. Sechs Zeichen by Sarah Nemtsov is also built on a deceptive foundation of instability. What seems static begins to take on a life of its own and change shape. Fragile sounds of longing, wrapped in a mysterious veil of sound, enter into an interplay with the insistent throbbing of sharp-edged sounds, rocking up to opposing poles that ultimately cancel each other out. In Animal Smileys, Jorge Sanchez-Chiong uses completely different tools to create music that is no less intense. Strange string sounds, dragged through the experimental laboratory of electronic effects, deformed, denatured, saturated. A rich sound experience that makes the ears gyrate on the experimental trance floor. Victor Ibarra’s compositions are usually characterized by a very precise handling of harmonies and tone structures and attention to rhythmic accents. In contrast, Katharina Rosenberger’s works question both musical production and reception habits from several angles. Both of them will probably contribute very different new works to the concert.

PHACE | TIEMPO SUSPENDIDO

20.Mrz.2024 // 19:30
Wiener Konzerthaus, Berio-Saal

PHACE Series 23/24 – N°2

PROGRAM

Raquel García-Tomás
Estudio Sonomecánico no. 1 – Tiempo Suspendido for ensemble, electronics and video, 2018

Lorenzo Troiani 
La voce delle conchiglie for amplified bass clarinet and electronics, 2022

Joanna Bailie
Dissolve or ensemble, electronics and video, 2020 (ÖEA)

Daniela Terranova
Rainbow Dust in the Sky for string trio, 2018 (ÖEA)

Clara Iannotta
Outer Space for bariton saxophone, percussion, electric guitar, object performer, film und electronics, 2018
Film by Peter Tscherkassky

A woman, on the run from her own reflection, pursued by invisible enemies, driven into an errant scenario of annihilation. A horror-like dance of faces and reflections that spills over the edges and takes possession of the space outside. With music by Clara Iannotta, Peter Tscherkassky’s short film Outer Space unfolds an almost overwhelming sensual effect. Music and film are closely intertwined in very different ways in Estudio Sonomecánico no. 1 – Tiempo Suspendido by Raquel García-Tomás. Less of a soundtrack or background to the images, García-Tomás allows cinematic gestures and movements to emerge anew in the music and approaches standstill and timelessness with humorous everyday images. Daniela Terranova takes the musical classic “Over the Rainbow”, burned into the collective memory by Judy Garland in the Wizard of Oz and a Hawaiian ukulele, as the starting point for Rainbow Dust in the Sky. Subtly pulverized and crushed to dust, the tracks of the song become nuanced, diluted echoes that, circling meditatively within themselves, suggest the ritualistic character of a lullaby. A constant, unstoppable flow is evident in Joanna Bailie’s Dissolve. In time-absorbing transitions, both the film and the sonic events alternate between concrete states and abstract moments, reality dissolves beyond recognition. Lorenzo Troiani goes into the inner world, playing in La Vita delle Conchiglie with the returning resonances and feedbacks in the body of instruments, creating a hidden and mysterious sound world, as if inside a conch shell.

PHACE | PROFESSOR BAD TRIP

9.Jan.2024 // 19:30
Wiener Konzerthaus, Berio-Saal

PHACE Series 23/24 – N°1

PROGRAMM

Alexander Kaiser
[ˈprɪz(ə)m] for six musicians, 2014 (rev. 2016)

Emre Sihan Kaleli
A Dark Light / A Black Sun  for ensemble and electronics, 2023 (wp)
Comissioned by PHACE

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

Inspired by the descriptions of the effects of mescaline in the works of Henri Michaux, Fausto Romitelli’s work is all about “the artificial, the distorted, the filtered.” Romitelli forges sound sculptures that materialize like surreal musical visions of the deformations, distortions and disfigurements in Francis Bacon’s paintings. Influenced by the distorted and “dirty” sounds of psychedelic rock music, Romitelli creates a unique music that unfolds waves of melodic fragments over seductively fragile harmonies and exalted embellishments and rushing glissandi, only to collapse again and again. Material is jolted, develops expressive metastases, like a virus-infested musical mutant that becomes a beautifully ghoulish monster and captivates. The music of Alexander Kaiser, who in [ˈprɪz(ə)m] takes on the promises of an ideal world through area-wide monitoring of communication in the Western hemisphere, has a similarly wild balance sheet. Musically, the piece can be understood as a transformation of energy, with diverse influences from jazz, punk and electronic music merging into a rhythmically pronounced soundscape. More than enough expressive energy can usually be found in the music of Emre Sihan Kaleli, who likes to work with intensities, impulsivity and changeability and will contribute a new work for the concert.

Invisible

Nov. 22, 2023 // 18:00 & 20:30
Wien Modern 2023
reaktor, Geblergasse 40, 1170 Wien
Tickets: Wien Modern

ARTISTS
Isabel Mundry, composition
Susanne Blumenthal, conductor
James Weeks, director EXAUDI

Vokalensemble EXAUDI

PHACE
Doris Nicoletti, flute
Markus Sepperer, oboe
Michael Krenn, saxophone
Walter Seebacher, bass clarinet
Spiros Laskaridis, trumpet
Stefan Obmann, trombone
Maria Chlebus, percussion
Igor Gross, percussion
Anna Lindenbaum, violin
Jacobo Hernández Enríquez, violin
Sophia Goidinger-Koch, viola
Sarah Dragović, viola
Manuel Schager, cello
Alexandra Dienz, double bass
Tina Žerdin, harp
Marie Zimmer, harp

Production Wien Modern
Cooperation Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde in Wien
As part of Musikverein Perspektiven: Peter Zumthor

Isabel Mundry: Invisible (2023 UA) – 50′
Commissioned by Wien Modern and Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde in Wien

What we see or not, who is seen or not, is a socio-cultural phenomenon: perspective influences belonging, inclusion or exclusion. With a composed, moving spatial constellation, Isabel Mundry traces the invisible. PHACE, Arditti Quartet & Co. will complement the large new production in the Reaktor at the end of the festival week, curated together with Peter Zumthor, with further chamber and vocal music works by the composer on the following two days.

Between the performances, Peter Zumthor invites to a workshop discussion with Isabel Mundry at 7:55 p.m