PHACE
Doris Nicoletti, flute
Walter Seebacher, clarinet
Reinhold Brunner, clarinet
Michael Krenn, saxophone
Spiros Laskaridis, trumpet
Stefan Obmann, trombone
Mathilde Hoursiangou, piano
Manuel Alcaraz Clemente, percussion
Francesco Palmieri, e-guitar
Ivana Pristašová Zaugg, violin
Petra Ackermann, viola
Roland Schueler, cello
Maximilian Ölz, double bass
Alexandra Dienz, double bass
and many more …

 

SOUND DESIGN
Alfred Reiter

 

Reality is malleable until it isn’t anymore – systems and orders teeter between fragile equilibria. Crises, social inequalities, climate change, and migration reveal new fault lines, while the digital information overload questions whether we can still trust our own eyes and ears. In THE UNSTABLE REAL, we invite you to experience this unstable reality, to perceive its fractures, and to rethink them – aesthetically, emotionally, socially, and politically. With Georgia Koumará, who explores a network of relationships, dynamics, and interdependencies, and Clemens Gadenstätter, who makes the interactions between the individual and the environment tangible over time. Eva Reiter uses utopian sound apparatuses to investigate the transformative potential of rituals, before Philip Venables holds up a merciless mirror and shatters the hypocritical illusions of our society with provocative, sexual directness. In between, the series is brimming with new material, sonic treasures, and music that challenges reality.

Dates in this series

#1 FR 27.11.2026 ⎹   STATES OF INTERMESHING
    #2 MI 26.01.2027 ⎹   FACES
        #3 DI 09.03.2027  ⎹   RITUS
            #4 DI 25.05.2027  ⎹   ILLUSIONS

With works by Matthias Kranebitter, Corie Rose Soumah, Davor Vincze, Georgia Koumará, Manuela Kerer, Rafał Ryterski, Clemens Gadenstätter, Eva Reiter, Philip Venables, Marco Döttlinger, Alexander Schubert. 

Michael Wendeberg, conductor

PHACE
Doris Nicoletti, flute
Walter Seebacher, clarinet
Reinhold Brunner, clarinet
Michael Krenn, saxophone
Spiros Laskaridis, trumpet
Stefan Obmann, trombone
Mathilde Hoursiangou, piano
Manuel Alcaraz Clemente, percussion
Francesco Palmieri, e-guitar
Ivana Pristašová Zaugg, violin
Petra Ackermann, viola
Roland Schueler, cello
Maximilian Ölz, double bass
Alexandra Dienz, double bass
and many more …

SOUND DESIGN
Alfred Reiter

It is a “story of emotions” that unfolds musically and visually: faces become visual voices that participate in the ensemble and open up their own narrative level. In FACES, Clemens Gadenstätter explores the interactions between the individual and the environment as a socio-musical sculpture in time. Stage, space, and sound intertwine — connected by taut metal wires, functioning simultaneously as instrument and sculptural object — into a mobile space-time sculpture in which perception, space, and time can be experienced anew, and existing orders are liquefied and reconceived, perhaps only for the duration of the performance. In the new work Maserholz, Rafał Ryterski examines the eponymous proliferating phenomenon in wood growth, which simultaneously represents deformation, healing, and homeostasis. Burl wood becomes a metaphor for organic processes in which growth and injury collide, intertwine, and lead to impressively interwoven results. Manuela Kerer‘s epicyclic noise (as a revised version from 2018/26) takes up the epicycle theory, which, despite some inconsistencies, served for a very long time as an explanatory model for the movement of celestial bodies. Sound sources, sound-noise acrobats, and a string quintet revolve around an imaginary center, complementing and opposing each other simultaneously, while the center is gradually undermined and ultimately loses its influence entirely.

PROGRAMM

Manuela Kerer
epicyclic noise für Sound-Noise-Acrobats, Streichquintett und Zuspielung, 2018/2026

Rafał Ryterski
Maserholz für verstärktes Ensemble, 2026
Kompositionsauftrag von Radio Österreich 1 in Kooperation mit ORF musikprotokoll für PHACE

P A U S E

Clemens Gadenstätter
FACES für Ensemble, Elektronik, Raum und Fotofilm 2025/26  (UA)
Fotofilm: Otto Saxinger
Kompositionsauftrag von PHACE und Wiener Konzerthaus

Helēna Sorokina, voice

PHACE
Doris Nicoletti, flute
Walter Seebacher, clarinet
Reinhold Brunner, clarinet
Michael Krenn, saxophone
Spiros Laskaridis, trumpet
Stefan Obmann, trombone
Mathilde Hoursiangou, piano
Manuel Alcaraz Clemente, percussion
Francesco Palmieri, e-guitar
Ivana Pristašová Zaugg, violin
Petra Ackermann, viola
Roland Schueler, cello
Maximilian Ölz, double bass
Alexandra Dienz, double bass
and many more …

SOUND DESIGN
Alfred Reiter

In Illusions, Philip Venables, together with LGBTQIA+ performance artist David Hoyle, has developed a multimedia work for speaker (video) and ensemble. Hoyle’s video performance confronts the audience with a torrent of political tirades, personal attacks, grotesque humor, and provocative sexual directness. He attacks hypocrisy, social inequality, toxic masculinity, and consumerism, shifting linguistically between bitter seriousness, deliberate taboo-breaking, and cabaret-style mockery. And the music? It reacts with equal intensity: rhythmically aggressive, eruptive, then shimmering and disconcertingly smooth. Soundscapes and gestures function like distorted advertising messages or political slogans, interlocking with the images in a jerky, almost violent interplay that inevitably draws the audience in. Illusions is a merciless mirror that puts the audience to the test, questioning their attitudes as well as their role as consumers of art. New works by Alexander Schubert, who in AUTO FICTION blurs the line between documentary and fiction, wandering through an altered archive of the most formative, intense, and outstanding memories, and Marco Döttlinger promise a captivating and likely also haunting listening experience. The eleventh movement of Corie Rose Soumah’s States of Intermeshing series also thematically completes the cycle, bringing it full circle to its beginning. xi. épilogue explores eschatological forces, ecological crises, and self-discovery. “There are flowers blooming in Antarctica” – a poetic, fragile, sonically sensual piece, like a strangely peaceful echo after the catastrophe, revealing a glimpse into another fragile reality.

Philip Venables
Illusions (feat. David Hoyle) for ensemble und video, 2017 (ap)

Marco Döttlinger
New Work, 2026/27 (wp)
Commissioned by PHACE

Corie Rose Soumah
States of Intermeshing: xi. épilogue for violin, cello, piano and electronics, 2024 (ap)

P A U S E

Alexander Schubert 
AUTO FICTION for voice, ensemble, electronics and video, 2026
Commissioned by Radio Österreich 1 in cooperation with ORF musikprotokoll, PHACE and Biennale Zagreb

PHACE
Doris Nicoletti, flute
Walter Seebacher, clarinet
Reinhold Brunner, clarinet
Michael Krenn, saxophone
Spiros Laskaridis, trumpet
Stefan Obmann, trombone
Mathilde Hoursiangou, piano
Manuel Alcaraz Clemente, percussion
Francesco Palmieri, e-guitar
Ivana Pristašová Zaugg, violin
Petra Ackermann, viola
Roland Schueler, cello
Maximilian Ölz, double bass
Alexandra Dienz, double bass
and many more …

 

SOUND DESIGN
Alfred Reiter

 

Matthias Kranebitter startet ein musikalisches Experiment über Wahrnehmung im Zeitalter akustischer Überforderung. Mit einem maschinellen Hörsystem, das in Echtzeit Ensembleklänge und Alltagsgeräusche analysiert, wird, inspiriert vom „Cocktailparty-Effekt“,  das scheinbare Klangchaos zum Modell für Aufmerksamkeit und Selektion. Corie Rose Soumahs States of Intermeshing, viii. what is past is prologue verbindet Klang und politische Reflexion. Das Werk beleuchtet die Verflechtung von kolonialer Geschichte, apokalyptischen Diskursen und gegenwärtigen Machtstrukturen. Mit Anklängen an Soul und R&B und Texten von Achille Mbembé wird Musik zum Raum für Erinnerung, Widerstand und postkoloniale Befreiung. In QUEE(n)R macht Davor Vincze „Bohemian Rhapsody“ zum Ausgangspunkt einer offenen Improvisation. Fragmente des Originals werden zerlegt, neu kombiniert und in Bewegung gehalten, während auf visueller Ebene mit Hilfe von KI-Bildgeneratoren die Ambiguität und das queere Potential von Gesichtern hervorgehoben wird. Ein Spiel mit Identitäten und Bedeutungen – fluid, vielstimmig und voller überraschender Wendungen. Ein neues Werk von Georgia Koumará vereint viele Themenstellungen des Abends. Darin erforscht die Komponistin Kommunikation, Empathie und Macht als dynamische Kräfte. Musikalische Prozesse entwickeln sich, kollidieren und verändern einander – ein klingendes Netzwerk von Beziehungen, das gesellschaftliche Strukturen hörbar macht

PROGRAMM

Matthias Kranebitter
28 Auditory Scenes for investigating cocktail party deafness for ensemble and electronics, 2022

Corie Rose Soumah
States of Intermeshing: vii. what is past is prologue for flute, clarinet, piano, percussion, violin, cello, electronics and additional instruments, 2025 (ap)

Davor Vincze  
QUEE(n)R for flute, saxophone, percussion, keyboard, electronics and video, 2023 (ap)

P A U S E

Georgia Koumará
New Work for ensemble and electronics, 2026 (wp)
Commissioned by PHACE & Wien Modern

Pierre Jodlowski, concept – composition
– video – lights
Frank Witzel, text
Louise Sari, stage design

Polish translation: Zbigniew Naliwajek

PHACE
Doris Nicoletti, flute
Michael Krenn, saxophone
Ivana Pristašová Zaugg, violin
Roland Schueler, cello
Manuel Alcaraz Clemente, percussion
Stefan Obmann, trombone
Alfred Reiter, sound design

Voice Performers
Véronique Caye, Frank Smith, Maria Cristina
Mastrangeli, Xavier Maurel, Ulysses Mengue,
Vanessa Bettane, Philippe Langlois

Camera crew
Pierre Jodlowski
Markus Bruckner
Michael Eder

Video extras
Barbara Eder, Michael Eder, Reinhard Fuchs,
Petra Fuchs-Jebinger, Simone Göbel,
Nikolas Heep, Mia Kim, Maximilian Ölz,
Wolfgang Winter, Elfriede Wuschko

Production
Reinhard Fuchs, artistic director PHACE
Markus Bruckner, production PHACE
Emilie Roupnel, production éOle

Pierre Jodlowski

INSULÆ for six musicians, video, lights and electronics, 2024/25
commissioned by PHACE and éOle studio de création musicale & with the support of the

   and   

a production by PHACE & éOle in co-production with Warsaw Autumn, Wien Modern, Osterfestival Tirol and GRAME – Centre National de Création Musicale

In 1940, Adolfo Bioy Casares published The Invention of Morel, a visionary novella released at a time when Hollywood cinema was flourishing. Around the world, movie theaters were multiplying, and with them emerged a new form of human connection: the ability to share emotions, stories, and attachments with fictional beings—with images, simply projected onto a screen.

Since then, humanity has entered an era where our relationship to images has become central—eventually blurring the line between reality and its representation. This confusion, now intensified by digital networks and our growing desire for virtual existence, raises a question already posed by Casares: Can one fall in love with an image?

Autor Frank Witzel greift diese Frage auf und komponiert ein literarisches Palimpsest, das Fragmente von Casares mit Echos von  Shakespeare, Kierkegaard, Deleuze, Augé, Baudrillard usw. vermischt. Er führt uns auf eine Insel außerhalb der Zeit, gefangen in einer Endlosschleife, wo drei Figuren – ein Mann und zwei Frauen – versuchen, einer instabilen Welt durch die Auseinandersetzung mit ihren Gedanken und Gefühlen einen Sinn zu verleihen. Wie in Tarkowskis « Solaris » ist der Ozean hier kein natürliches Element, sondern ein denkender Organismus, eine mentale Projektion, die ein Eigenleben entwickelt hat.

Martin Matalon, conductor

PHACE
Doris Nicoletti, flute
Elena Arbonies Jauregui, clarinet
Edurne Santos Arrastua, bassoon
Reinhard Zmölnig, horn
Milica Zakić, piano
Spiros Laskaridis, trumpet
Stefan Obmann, trombone
Tina Žerdin, harp
Manuel Alcaraz Clemente, percussion
Igor Gross, percussion
Ivana Pristašová Zaugg, violin
Leo Morello, cello

SOUND DESIGN
Alfred Reiter

Martin Matalon

Foxtrot Délirium for 12 instruments and electronics, 2015
Music for the silent film

Die Austernprinzessin (1919) Director: Ernst Lubitsch, Script: Ernst Lubitsch, Hanns Kräly

This early silent film by master director Ernst Lubitsch already demonstrates his tremendous talent for timing. With a light touch and exuberant inventiveness, he staged the fast-paced, satirical social comedy genre for the first time, perfecting it.

The extremely wealthy American businessman Quaker has earned his fortune from seafood and is therefore known everywhere as the Oyster King. His spirited daughter, the “Oyster Princess,” is determined to marry a European nobleman. This leads her to the penniless Prince Nuki, who first sends his servant Josef ahead. Believing she has a real prince on her hands, the impetuous millionaire’s daughter marries the servant at the first opportunity. In doing so, she sets in motion a turbulent chain of events…

Musically, Martin Matalon exploits the entire spectrum of possible relationships between music and images, between the editing of the film and the articulation of the music: from the most dependent parallelism to the most complete divergence. From the points of contact between music and image, a third, independent work emerges that carries an important aspect of Lubitsch’s film into the present: social criticism through comedy and humor. Humor, which is all too often lacking in contemporary music, enables us to deal with important, often profound things with wit and lightness.

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
Igor Gross, 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′

Miameide

21./23./25./26./27./28./30. Sep. 2023
sirene Operntheater
Jugendstiltheater am Steinhof

ARTISTS
Julia Purgina, Musik
Kristine Tornquist, Text
Julia Libiseller, Trickfilm

Johanna Krokovay, Mia
Romana Amerling, Sachbearbeiterin
Ingrid Haselberger, Arbeitslose, Gärtnerin
Benjamin Boresch, Sachbearbeiterin,
Blumenhändlerin
Vladimir Cabak, Arbeitsloser, Gärtner
Johann Leutgeb, Sachbearbeiterin, Kunde

Vokalensemble Momentum Vocal Music
Ekaterina Krasko, Sopran
Elisabeth Kirchner, Mezzosopran
Aleksandar Jovanovic, Countertenor
Simon Erasimus, Tenor und Leitung
Benjamin Harasko, Bassbariton

Ensemble PHACE
Doris Nicoletti, Flöte
Reinhold Brunner, Klarinette
Dominik Fuss, Trompete
Stefan Obmann, Posaune
Berndt Thurner, Percussion
Maria Chlebus, Percussion
Tina Žerdin, Harfe
Mathilde Hoursiangou, Klavier/Celesta
Maria Mogas Gensana, Akkordeon
Thomas Wally, Violine
Jacobo Hernández Enríquez, Violine
Anna Lindenbaum, Viola
Barbara Riccabona, Violoncello
Stefanie Prenn, Violoncello
Manuel Schager, Violoncello
Michael Seifreid, Kontrabass

Antanina Kalechyts, Musikalische Leitung
Kristine Tornquist, Regie
Michael Liszt, Markus Liszt, Je Jesch, Bühne
Maria Mitterlehner, Kostüm
Klara Leschanz, Maske
Paul Eisemann, Licht
Germano Milite, Animation und
Videotechnik

Petra Giacalone, Korrepetition und
Studienleitung
Selina Umundum, Assistenz und Inspizienz
Anna Skrepek, Hospitanz und Übertitel

Zine Tornquist, Grafik
Barbara Vanura, PR und Presse
Barbara Palffy, Fotographie
Peter Landsmann, Paul Landsmann,
Filmmitschnitt
Martin Horváth, Produktionsleitung
Jury Everhartz, Produktion

Mia can understand the language of plants. But there is no use for this ability in the world. At the employment office, she is placed in jobs where plants are traded like objects. But she is no good either as a flower seller or in the large gardening business, wherever she goes, she always understands too much about the needs of the plants. When she realizes that there is no longer room in the human world for those who can hear, she flees into another existence. Even if we cannot hear them, the silent sisters are not mute. Their language is growth, their ceaseless unfolding, multiplying, branching and differentiating is their narrative of overcoming entropy.

An opera about plants. Plants are not opera characters. You can only approach them through metaphors. First of all, in the intuitive way in which music can represent a language of plants. Julia Purgina has written lively and fragile music that makes botanical structures and the fractal growth of plants tangible. The language of plants. Even the human voice, which is used without words for the plants, can represent something “outrageous”, non-human. In her stop motion film, Julia Libiseller shows the tireless and surreal movements of leaves, blossoms and roots in their eternal search for light and water.

More…

Miameide – opera in 8 scenes with a prologue
With text by Kristine Tornquist, music by Julia Purgina and stop motion film by Julia Libiseller

 A sirene-production in cooperation with PHACE and Momentum Vocal Music

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.