EVOLUTION: Composition Commissions issued to Farzia Fallah and Stephan Winkler

Sonar Quartet, Berlin, Germany

Starting from the notion of seeing improvisation itself as an evolutionary process, the Sonar Quartet develops the new work Magma, an original composition that the musicians develop from concert to concert throughout the entire concert series. They pick out aspects of the concept of evolution – such as mutation, recombination, selection – for musical reflection and also make room for random chance. In doing so, the quartet leaves open how the development will proceed: will it become more linear, what will prevail, what will endure, what will be rejected – and why? Or will the process come to a complete standstill, die out and emerge anew? In improvising and composing together, they let themselves be guided by the approaches of evolutionary theory, change, adaptation, the simultaneity of cooperation and opposition.

In its concerts the Sonar Quartet seeks a dialogue between its own improvisational, compositional pieces and works by George Crumb, Friedrich Goldmann, Laure M. Hiendl, Márton Illés, Benedict Mason, Samir Odeh-Tamimi, Enno Poppe, Salvatore Sciarrino and John Zorn. Classics of the string quartet repertoire, works by Ludwig van Beethoven, Charles Ives, Leoš Janáček, Luigi Nono, Dmitri Shostakovich and Giuseppe Verdi are also included in the programs.

In order to create new impulses, two composition commissions will be awarded as part of the project. In the last two concerts of the series, a new work by the Iranian composer Farzia Fallah and one by the Berlin composer Stephan Winkler will be premiered.

Further Information:
sonarquartett.de