Tectonics – Eight Composition Commissions

Musikfestival Bern, Switzerland

Musikfestival Bern offers a prominent platform for contemporary Swiss music and initiates the creation of new musical works.

Tectonics can also be musical: counterpoint, stylistic, theoretical layers overlap, which is why it makes sense to draw this analogy or connection between art and science. Measurement data of earth movements become the basis for compositional work and stone layers become sound. Japanese composer Toshio Hosokawa, the festival's composer-in-residence, has also explored tectonics in musical terms, especially earthquakes in his home country. A focal point of the festival is dedicated to his work.

The four musicians of the Arditti Quartet are engaged as artists-in-residence in the 2020 edition of the festival, performing Toshio Hosokawa's The Raven to open the festival as part of a top-class collective ensemble, as well as presenting a concert featuring works by Iannis Xenakis and Brian Ferneyhough.

The "five to twelve" concert series brings together climate scientists and composers in a concert format. Musikfestival Bern is awarding six composition commissions whose basis must be a diagram of a scientific study linked to climate change. The premieres by Wanja Aloe, Stephanie Haensler, Isabel Klaus, Daniel Mouthon, Ricardo Eizirik and Teresa Carrasco will be complemented by moderated discussions. Musikfestival Bern thus explores how the climate debate impacts artistic work and conversely how scientific work can be expressed in artistic formats.

Further Information:
musikfestivalbern.ch