Four Composition Commissions: Intime Kommunikationen

tritonus – Verein zur Förderung der zeitgenössischen Musik, Bremen, Germany

With the concert series HörenSehen contemporary music society tritonus e.V. has created a format in Bremen that is dedicated to the most varied forms of visual music, thereby initiating new works in this field. As part of this series, in the concert project Intime Kommunikationen (Intimate Communications) a total of four new audiovisual guitar works are now to be created with the musicians Henrik Dewes and Tobias Klich.

The four compositions each deal with the theme in their very own way: Tomoya Yokokawa sounds out the intimate relationship between body and instrument and its erotic potential; the theatrical movements of the guitar are tightly intertwined here with the music. With the composer Farzia Fallah the intimate communication takes place between two guitars that at a suitable distance sitting back to back meld into one sole resonating body. The unusual seating position of the musicians, each with their profile towards the audience, on the one hand conceals some of the playing and, on the other, gives rise to a new scenic context of the mirror-like playing of the two bodies. Thus, intimacy on a physical, visual and tonal level. Jieun Jun is interested in a situation whereby two talking guitarists observe each other while making music and, on another level, observe these observations as well as the audience and their reactions. With her experience as a conductor, the composer directs her attention to the connection between bodily gestures and musical communication. Mattia Bonafini finally creates intimate communication with the greatest possible spatial distance. The audience roams in a walk-in sound installation with six guitars dotted around the room which can be stimulated to sound independently with the help of body sound transducers. This electro-acoustic system is controlled by a guitarist on stage, who initiates a kind of social communication with the other guitars. The live electronics react, respond, but also go their own way.

Between the four world premieres performed in concert, video interviews dig deeper into the issues of the social impact of the corona pandemic on interpersonal intimate communication. The Ernst von Siemens Music Foundation is supporting the composition commissions and their premieres.  

Further Information:
tritonus-verein.de