The Spider as an Artist

23. Oct. 2023 // 19:30
Großer Ehrbar Saal
Palais Ehrbar, Mühlgasse 28, 1040 Wien

Entrance: pay as you wish

PHACE
Mathilde Hoursiangou, piano
Berndt Thurner, percussion
Roland Schueler, cello
Alexandra Dienz, double bass
Samuel Toro-Pérez, e-guitar

The spider is an aesthetically inclined creature. He constructs his nets from the finest threads and with extremely elaborate, careful detail to fit every corner precisely. As a solo artist, he sometimes takes idiosyncratic paths, deviates from the given pattern, extends a corner here or leaves out a thread there. But the result speaks for itself: a web that is not round, but nonetheless attractive from all perspectives.

It is precisely these complementary opposites of given structure and enriching deviations that come together in the concert evening The Spider as an Artist (mind you: not the other way around). In five solo pieces, the musicians weave webs only to tear them apart again, test the tonal tensile strength of their instrument, and exploit the possibilities down to the last corner. In the evening’s title work, Franck Bedrossian writes an invisible poem by Emily Dickinson, as transparent as a spider’s web, with the bow on the body of the cello, while Sarah Nemtsov is inspired by a poem by Anne Sexton for Seven Thoughts – Her Kind. Timpani Trek by Horacio Vaggione creates a network of phase de-correlations and expands the sound space of the timpani with strange materials and spatial electronics. In Christof Dienz’s Bass Surface, two players intervene in the solo performance of the double bass and enrich the performance with percussive elements, while in Alexander Kaiser’s piece the guitarist’s fingers scurry spider-like over the fingerboard and through shattered outer-space soundscapes.

The Spider as an Artist
Has never been employed —
Though his surpassing Merit
Is freely certified

By every Broom and Bridget
Throughout a Christian Land —
Neglected Son of Genius
I take thee by the Hand —

Emily Dickinson (1275)

PROGRAMM

Franck Bedrossian
The Spider as an Artist for amplified cello solo.

Christof Dienz
Bass surface for double bass solo with 2 players, 2014.

Horacio Vaggione
Timpani Trek for percussion and electronics, 2018.

Alexander Kaiser
WhIch is NoT for e-guitar and electronics 2022/23.

Sarah Nemtsov
Seven Thoughts – Her Kind for sample keyboard with voice, 2018

In the Blink of an Ear

3. Oct. 2023 // 18:30
SUSSUDIO
Wolfgang-Schmälzl-Gasse 19, 1020 Wien

Improvisations and Compositions
Free entrance

PHACE
Roland Schueler, cello
JSX, Turntables

“Excuse me, do you say in English, ‘I look at the window,’ or do you say in English, ‘I look out the window’?” In Jim Jarmusch’s film Down By Law, the Italian drifter, Bob (played by Roberto Benigni), draws a window on the wall of his windowless jail cell. Bob, who speaks little English, asks his cellmate, Jack (played by John Lurie), which preposition to use when speaking of his window. Jack replies, “In this case, Bob, I’m afraid you’ve got to say, ‘I look at the window.’” (Seth Kim-Cohen, ›In the Blink of an Ear‹) …

From September 20, 2023, the exhibition BLINK OF AN EYE can be seen at the artspace SUSSUDIO. It brings together new location-specific works by Kaja Clara Joo and Michael Kienzer in order to trace elective affinities and interactions and to create an exciting dialogue at the interface between sculpture and installation. As part of the exhibition, PHACE will connect with the works of art on October 3rd with a performance by Roland Schueler and Jorge Sánchez-Chiong in order to trace the above relationships and effects inside the sonic art space.

When In the Blink of an Ear minimalism and maximalism merge, lowercase and hyperpop collide, Schueler & Sánchez-Chiong are playing and listening, , to paraphrase Seth Kim-Cohen, definitely “out of the jail cell”. It is another facet in PHACE’s regular collaboration with Jorge Sánchez-Chiong and his incomparable mix of musical spontaneity and boundary-pushing understanding of sound – as a composer, on the turntables or in educational projects – and also a foretaste to PHACE | ANIMAL SMILEYS , our cycle concert on May 7th, 2024, where we will once again deepen our collaboration with Sánchez-Chiong.

In the Blink of an Ear
Improvisations and Compositions by Schueler and Sánchez-Chiong

PHACE
Roland Schueler | Cello
JSX | Turntables

Exhibition: BLINK OF AN EYE  20.09.—11.10.2023, Sussudio, Wolfgang-Schmälzl-Gasse 19, 1020 Wien

Festival Internacional de Musica de Canarias

Oct. 14, 2023
Espacio la Granja
Santa Cruz de Tenerife

Oct. 15, 2023
Teatro Guiniguada
Las Palmas de Gran Canaria

conductor
Nacho de Paz

PHACE
Doris Nicoletti, flute
Walter Seebacher, clarinet
Spiros Laskaridis, trumpet
Mathilde Hoursiangou, piano/keyb
Berndt Thurner, percussion
Samuel Toro Pérez, electric guitar
Jacobo Hernandez Enriquez, violin
Petra Ackermann, viola
Roland Schueler, cello
Maximilian Ölz, double bass

SOUND DESIGN
Alfred Reiter

Programm

Mirela Ivicevic
Case Black for 7 instruments & electronics, 2016  8’

José Luis Perdigón
ill-use III for bass flute, bass clarinet, piano, percussion, violin, cello and e-guitar, 2023 (wp)

Fausto Romitelli
Professor Bad Trip: Lesson I – III for ensemble and electronics, 1998-2000

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
Berndt Thurner, 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′

Im Bett des Imaginariums

26.Jun.2023, 19:30
REAKTOR
Geblergasse 40, 1170 Wien

büro lunaire
Gina Mattiello, text, voice
Reinhold Schinwald, sound design, live electronics
Florian Kindlinger, Sound

PHACE
Ivana Pristašová Zaugg, violin
Petra Ackermann, viola
Roland Schueler, cello

Eine Produktion von büro lunaire in Kooperation mit PHACE und REAKTOR.

Program

Christoph Herndler
Abschreiben (2005) Streichtrio

Clara Iannotta
dead wasps in the jam jar (2014-2015) Violine

Reinhold Schinwald
empreintes III (UA, 2023) Streichtrio und Live-Elektronik

Franck Bedrossian
The Spider as an Artist (2014) Violoncello und Verstärkung

Klaus Lang
die ränder der welt (2005) Violine

Enno Poppe
Fingernagel (2009) Violine und Viola

Rebecca Saunders
hauch (2018) Violine

Gérman Toro Pérez
Rulfo / ecos II (2006) Streichtrio und Live-Elektronik

PHACE | ANIMAL SMILEYS

7.May.2024 // 19:30
Wiener Konzerthaus, Berio-Saal

PHACE Series 23/24 – N°3

PROGRAMM

Sarah Nemtsov
Sechs Zeichen for cello und (prepared) piano, 2010

Mikel Urquiza
Opus Latericium for flute, saxophone, clarinet and piano, 2018

Katharina Rosenberger
New piece(wp), 2023/24
Comissioned by PHACE

Victor Ibarra
New piece (wp), 2023/24
Commissioned by PHACE, funded by Sistema Nacional de Creadores de Arte (FONCA) Mexico

Jorge Sanchez-Chiong
Animal Smileys for string trio and electronics, 2022

Opus Latericium is inspired by a Roman adobe construction of the imperial period. Triangular bricks, united to a dotted, polished, hard and refractory surface: from the outside, the repetitive music of Mikel Urquiza destructively hammers in time-lapse the hard shell, exposes the ruin. What remains of the wall shows little resemblance to the beginning. Fractured and weathered, a scattered remnant. Sechs Zeichen by Sarah Nemtsov is also built on a deceptive foundation of instability. What seems static begins to take on a life of its own and change shape. Fragile sounds of longing, wrapped in a mysterious veil of sound, enter into an interplay with the insistent throbbing of sharp-edged sounds, rocking up to opposing poles that ultimately cancel each other out. In Animal Smileys, Jorge Sanchez-Chiong uses completely different tools to create music that is no less intense. Strange string sounds, dragged through the experimental laboratory of electronic effects, deformed, denatured, saturated. A rich sound experience that makes the ears gyrate on the experimental trance floor. Victor Ibarra’s compositions are usually characterized by a very precise handling of harmonies and tone structures and attention to rhythmic accents. In contrast, Katharina Rosenberger’s works question both musical production and reception habits from several angles. Both of them will probably contribute very different new works to the concert.

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.

PHACE | PROFESSOR BAD TRIP

9.Jan.2024 // 19:30
Wiener Konzerthaus, Berio-Saal

PHACE Series 23/24 – N°1

PROGRAMM

Alexander Kaiser
[ˈprɪz(ə)m] for six musicians, 2014 (rev. 2016)

Emre Sihan Kaleli
A Dark Light / A Black Sun  for ensemble and electronics, 2023 (wp)
Comissioned by PHACE

Fausto Romitelli
Professor Bad Trip: Lesson I – III for ensemble and electronics, 1998-2000

Inspired by the descriptions of the effects of mescaline in the works of Henri Michaux, Fausto Romitelli’s work is all about “the artificial, the distorted, the filtered.” Romitelli forges sound sculptures that materialize like surreal musical visions of the deformations, distortions and disfigurements in Francis Bacon’s paintings. Influenced by the distorted and “dirty” sounds of psychedelic rock music, Romitelli creates a unique music that unfolds waves of melodic fragments over seductively fragile harmonies and exalted embellishments and rushing glissandi, only to collapse again and again. Material is jolted, develops expressive metastases, like a virus-infested musical mutant that becomes a beautifully ghoulish monster and captivates. The music of Alexander Kaiser, who in [ˈprɪz(ə)m] takes on the promises of an ideal world through area-wide monitoring of communication in the Western hemisphere, has a similarly wild balance sheet. Musically, the piece can be understood as a transformation of energy, with diverse influences from jazz, punk and electronic music merging into a rhythmically pronounced soundscape. More than enough expressive energy can usually be found in the music of Emre Sihan Kaleli, who likes to work with intensities, impulsivity and changeability and will contribute a new work for the concert.

chamber music & electronics

taming and framing

Oct.2, 2022 – 12:00
(11:00 guided exhibition tour)
mumok
MQ, Museumsplatz 1, 1070 Wien

PHACE

Ivana Pristasova Zaugg, violin
Petra Ackermann, viola
Roland Schueler, cello
Samuel Toro Perez, guitar
Jorge Sanchez-Chiong, electronics

Being imprisoned in one’s own body; Singles who are turned into animals if they don’t fall in love within a certain period of time, The signs of the zodiac – with a variety of influences, PHACE stakes out the territory of this matinee and musically deals with the animalistic, with movement, physicality and the relationship between art and nature. With works by Helmut Oehring, Clara Iannotta, Samuel Toro Pérez, Karlheinz Stockhausen, Roland Schueler and a premiere by Jorge Sánchez-Chiong.

PROGRAM

Helmut Oehring
Locked – In – for guitar, violin, viola and cello, 1992 d:13′

Karlheinz Stockhausen
Aquarius (from „Tierkreis“, 1974-75) d:3′

Clara Iannotta
Limun for violin, viola and 2 page turners, 2011 D:9’

Karlheinz Stockhausen
Libra (from „Tierkreis“, 1974-75) d:4′

Samuel Toro Perez
Lobster Studies #2 Beige for electric guitar solo, 2022 d: 7′

Roland Schueler
Staub for cello and viola, 2020

Karlheinz Stockhausen
Virgo (from „Tierkreis“, 1974-75) d:4′

Jorge Sanchez-Chiong
Animal Smileys for string trio and electronics, 2022 d:20′
(Commissioned by PHACE, with the support of the SKE fund)