music theatre

Ephémère Enchainé

GERMAN PREMIERE
14.10.2021
23:00
Donaueschinger Musiktage

WORLD PREMIERE
16. & 17. Aug 2019
20:00
Bregenzer Festspiele

PHACE

Alvaro Collao Leon, saxophone
Spiros Laskaridis, trumpet
Stefan Obmann, trombone
Samuel Toro Perez, guitar
Mathilde Hoursiangou, keyboard, piano
Ivana Pristasova, violin
Sophia Goidinger-Koch, viola
Roland Schueler, cello (Bregenz)
David Unterhofer, cello (Donaueschingen)
Berndt Thurner, percussion
Maximilian Ölz, (electric) bass
Florian Bogner, sound design (Bregenz)

& Something Out There

Frederick Sakham, Bass
Jennifer Torrence, Percussion
Adam Rosenblatt, Percussion
Primoz Sukic, Guitar
Gwen Rouger, Keyboards & Electronics (Bregenz)
François Sarhan, Voice

PROGRAM

Ephémère Enchainé
a music theatre by Francois Sarhan
– a production by Bregenzer Festspiele together with the Donaueschinger Musiktage and  La Muse en Circuit

A unique cosmos full of music, stories, pictures and films fills the workshop stage on two consecutive evenings. The French artist François Sarhan seduces the audience with real and deceptively real stories, enigmatic figures and mysterious sounds.

Inspired by the Russian avant-garde and wondrous finds of European cultural history, grotesque and humorous worlds emerge. Again and again, figures such as Fjodor Dostojewski’s fantastic narrator Bobok or the peculiar Professor Henry Glaçon emerge.

In Sarhan’s self-designed and collaged stage sets of paper, his music and lyrics resound. Musicians of the international ensemble Something Out There and the Ensemble Phace from Vienna play on different stages within the space. The audience is invited to move freely in this cosmos on one or both evenings, which have different contents, and to leave it again and again during the several-hour performances. The fleeting nature of music, of the performing arts, can be experienced directly and at the same time enclosed in a space, as the French title of these evenings expresses: Éphémère Enchainé.

Music | Text | Concept | Space     François Sarhan

Press commentaries

“The Ensemble Phace, probably one of the most renowned contemporary ensembles for new music in Austria, shone with remarkable enthusiasm and wit. The musicians, all of them splendid soloists, also knew how to convince in their perfect interplay.” Kulturzeitschrift, Dagmar Ullmann-Bautz

“What is Sarhan doing? With the Ensemble Phace he has gathered versed musicians who turn his composition into the most impressive element of the evening. One can navigate through the music of the late 20th century, discovering numerous quotations from jazz, and yet never get the impression that Sarhan is an eclectic.” Vorarlberger Nachrichten, Christa Dietrich

“Highly virtuoso and partly improvising, his performers – most of them musicians – perform the dreamlike sequences. […] As they walk and stumble through wondrous worlds, they themselves become integral parts of a work of art that makes the boundaries between genres, places and times disappear in a revealing and highly entertaining way.” Der Westallgäuer

“Sarhan narrates through all these stories, loosely entwining them as his two music ensembles move through the genres with breath-taking certainty. On the one hand, there are the ten musicians of “Ensemble Phace”, who prove themselves as a rock band as well as in romantic-symphonic euphony.
[…]
The spectators explore the world of changing wonders (Wunderwandelwelt), closely listening, because now it is evident: no one can fully grasp this world, it is about picking up fragments and combining them. Maybe the infinitely filigree rhythm game of Jennifer Torrence and Adam Rosenblatt with the soundscapes of the guitarist Samuel Toro Perez? Or the stupendous versatility of the violinist Ivana Pristasova with the expressionist film sequences?” ORF, Ingrid Bertel

“The spectators are invited to move freely within the three hours, leaving for breaks at one’s own discretion. But in the end, only a few choose to leave Sarhan’s cosmos, spellbound by the evening’s proceedings. Wonderful world of changing wonders.” Südkurier, Elisabeth Schwind