ensemble

PHACE | NOUVELLES AVENTURES

29.May.2023 // 19:30
Wiener Konzerthaus, Mozart-Saal

PHACE Series 22/23 – N°4

ARTISTS
Lars Mlekusch, conductor

Neue Vocalsolisten Stuttgart
Johanna Vargas, soprano
Truike van der Poel, mezzo-soprano
Guillermo Anzorena, bariton

PHACE
Doris Nicoletti, flute
Reinhard Zmölnig, horn
Reinhold Brunner, clarinet
Berndt Thurner, percussion
Sonja Leipold, cembalo
Mathilde Hoursiangou, piano
Jacobo Hernández Enríquez, violin
Victor Lowrie Tafoya, viola
Roland Schueler, cello
Alexandra Dienz, double bass

PROGRAM

Andreas Trobollowitsch
hybrid #1 – ⥀18 for mechanical turntables, rotating recorders, balloons and performers, 2023 (UA)
Commissioned by PHACE

Hristina Šušak
ANIMA II for soprano, mezzo, recorder, calrinet, drumset, piano, violin and viola, 2022/23 (wp)
Commissioned by PHACE, with support by Wiener Konzerthaus & SKE-Fonds

Pierluigi Billone
Δίκη Wall for percussion solo and 6 instruments (2012)

P A U S E

György Ligeti
Aventures (1962) and Nouvelles Aventures (1962-65) for 3 voices and 7 Instruments

In honor of the old master and yet with new adventures – György Ligeti’s Aventures and Nouvelles Aventures have opened up new spaces for vocal music, emphasizing articulatory expression and showing singing as an independent musical art even without linguistic meaning. On the occasion of the composer’s 100th birthday, we would like to honor this turning point in the history of new music not only with a performance, but also with two commissioned works. The young composer Hristina Šušak is writing a new piece for the same cast, equally as a contrast across time and age, and Andreas Trobollowitsch is creating a performative music installation as an homage to the influential composer. With Pierluigi Billone’s Δίκη Wall, a very exciting work by a well-established contemporary artist is also on the program.

Prior to each concert, at 18:45, Juri Giannini will discuss the music with the composers within the setting of “Salon PHACE”.

ensemble & installation

PHACE | BLUR

28.Mrz.2023 // 19:30
Wiener Konzerthaus, Berio-Saal

PHACE Series 22/23 – N°3

ARTISTS

Yalda Zamani, conductor

PHACE
Doris Nicoletti,  flute
Iva Kovac, flute
Walter Seebacher, clarinet
Michael Krenn, saxophone
Stefan Obmann, trombone
Berndt Thurner, percussion
Mathilde Hoursiangou, piano
Ivana Pristasova Zaugg, violin
Leo Morello, cello
Roland Schueler, cello
Alexandra Dienz, double bass
Samuel Toro Perez, electric guitar
Alfred Reiter, sound design

PROGRAM

Hristina Šušak
ANIMA for trombone, cello, piano, e-guitar and percussion (2018/19) (Austrian premiere)

Katharina Rosenberger
blur for flute, clarinet, percussion, piano, violin and cello (2019)

Reinhold Schinwald
campi deserti for ensemble, 2022 (wp)
Commissioned by  PHACE, with support by the  SKE-Fonds and Kulturabteilung der Stadt Wien MA7

Maurizio Azzan
Wasteland_not yet, for nine spatialized and amplified  musicians, 2022/23 (wp)
Commissioned by PHACE with support by Wiener Konzerthaus

In Katharina Rosenberger’s piece, blurred contours emerge from the noise, like a late-night taxi ride in the unsteady light of neon signs and traffic lights. blur smudges the edges and contours but still remains in a defined form. ANIMA by Hristina Šušak finds similarities in the very opposite emotions of laughter and crying. The piece shows the sonic differences and similarities as the boundaries blur and raises questions about the dualistic view of emotions. They are joined by Reinhold Schinwald and Maurizio Azzan with exciting new works commissioned by PHACE.

Prior to each concert, at 18:45, Juri Giannini will discuss the music with the composers within the setting of “Salon PHACE”.

chamber ensemble & installation

PHACE | CHROMA

31.Jan.2023 // 19:30
Wiener Konzerthaus, Berio-Saal

PHACE Series 22/23 – N°2

ARTISTS

PHACE

Concert-installation with works by Maurizio Azzan, Clara Iannotta, Peter Jakober, Sarah Nemtsov and performative sound-sculptures by Andreas Trobollowitsch.

PROGRAM

Maurizio Azzan
Monochrome for string trio (2018) (Austrian premiere)

Stefan Prins
Mirror Box (Flesh+Prosthesis #3) for saxophone, piano, percussion and electronics (2014)

Andreas Trobollowitsch
sägezahm (panorama version 7)
performative sound installation for 7 mechanical turntables, saw blades and acoustic guitars (2022-23)

Peter Jakober
Vom Kreis brechen for bass clarinet and string trio (2011)

Clara Iannotta
Limun for violin, viola and 2 page-turners (2011)

Sarah Nemtsov
Seven Colours for cello, e-bass, prepared piano with keyboard, drum set and electronics (2018) (Austrian premiere)

Sound and noise viewed from all sides and in all facets – Maurizio Azzan‘s monochrome, closely linked to the private dimensions of music, grown out of the restrained feeling of playing just for oneself and discovering sounds, meets Stefan Prins‘ mirror box, in which musical extensions of the body trace the phantoms of electronic sounds. Both Peter Jakober and Clara Iannotta step into sonic spaces that are characterized by a self-contained, inwards turning logic. While the viola and violin circle each other in Limun with a lot of friction, the instruments in Jakober’s piece rock each other up until the fracture, already announced in the title. In Seven Colours, Sarah Nemtsov dedicates herself to the artistic work of her mother and her memories in a wide range of sound worlds and seven earth-colored shades.

Prior to each concert, at 18:45, Juri Giannini will discuss the music with the composers within the setting of “Salon PHACE”.

ensemble, video & voices

PHACE | PASOLINI

23.Nov.2022 // 19:30
Wien Modern, Wiener Konzerthaus, Mozart-Saal
PHACE Series 22/23 – N°1

17.Nov.2022 // 20:30
Pordenone, Teatro Verdi

19.Nov.2022 // 20:30
Festival Aperto, Reggio di Emilia, Teatro Cavallerizza

A coproduction by PHACE, Wien Modern, Fondazione I Teatri Reggio Emilia, Teatro Verdi Pordenone & Wiener Konzerthaus (Zyklus PHACE) with support by

ARTISTS
Stefano Gervasoni, composition
Paolo Pachini, video
Nacho de Paz, conductor

PHACE
Company of Music

commissioned by PHACE & Wien Modern, in cooperation with Fondazione I Teatri Reggio Emilia and Teatro Verdi Pordenone

In Nomine PPP – Cantata per Pier Paolo Pasolini für 8 voices, 16 instruments and video (2022) (Austrian premiere)
Text by Laurent Feneyrou on Pier Paolo Pasolini‘s writings selected by Roberto Calabretto, with a poem by Biagio Marin.

The Cantata per Pier Paolo Pasolini, composed on the occasion of his 100th birthday, pays homage to the work and life of the great Italian artist and intellectual and his political and cultural role in Italian and European society of the 1960s and 1970s. Stefano Gervasoni sets Pasolini’s poetry and writings to music in a large cantata, which also incorporates melancholic interludes by Josquin Desprez, all about lamentation, grief and loss, and grows into a broader musical connective tissue (so to speak: déploration pour la mort de Pier Paolo Pasolini). Following Pasolini’s anthropological vision, the eye of the camera in Paolo Pachini’s video explores poetic images of man and nature, countered by contemporary media streams. The closely interwoven interactions between music and images create a unique atmosphere in which perception is completely immersed.The hybridization of languages gives rise to a torn, but sometimes also forgiving expression, a homage to Pasolini’s harsh gaze, whose maieutic power lays bare things and – especially today in a globalized world – shows those intertweavings of modernity and tradition for which the poet was a prophet.

Prior to each concert, at 18:45, Juri Giannini will discuss the music with the composers within the setting of “Salon PHACE”.

ensemble – electronics

PHACE | KXE!

our series at
Wiener Konzerthaus
2022/23

CONDUCTORS
Nacho de Paz
Lars Mlekusch

PHACE
Doris Nicoletti, flute
Walter Seebacher, clarinet
Reinhold Brunner, clarinet
Michael Krenn, saxophone
Mathilde Hoursiangou, piano
Berndt Thurner, percussion
Ivana Pristasova, violin
Petra Ackermann, viola
Roland Schueler, cello
Maximilian Ölz, double bass
Alexandra Dienz, double bass
and many more …

On the centenary of Pier Paolo PASOLINI’s birth, Stefano Gervasoni and Paolo Pachini are searching in images and voices for the junction point between barbarism and civilization, for human authenticity, the heart of Pasolini’s vision. With this homage we start into new vocal-instrumental spheres, which span the arc from traces of Franco-Flemish vocal polyphony by Josquin Desprez to the voice-acrobatic miniature dramas Aventures and Nouvelles Aventures by György Ligeti – the second centenerian. With this pioneer of modern music, we continue the discourse on vocal-instrumental expression opened with Pasolini – the voice wanders with precision away from the level of meaning towards a labyrinthine amalgamation of imaginary actions and exaggerated emotions. New spaces open up between these program points: contours melt, sounds rub and grind, pulsate, flicker, melt away, are torn apart. An interplay of near and far: the view from a distance into the microscopic world of sound, into its granularity and brittleness and ultimately into silence.

Prior to each concert, at 18:45,  Juri Giannini will discuss the pieces with the composers of the evening.

Dates in this series:

WED 23.11.2022 KH series 1 – PHACE | PASOLINI
TUE 31.01.2023 KH series 2 – PHACE | CHROMA
TUE 28.03.2023 KH series 3 – PHACE | BLUR
TUE 29.05.2023 KH series 4 – PHACE | NOUVELLES AVENTURES

narrator – ensemble – electronics

PHACE | SITUATIONS

our series at
Wiener Konzerthaus
2020/21

CONDUCTORS
Nacho de Paz
Lars Mlekusch

PHACE
Doris Nicoletti, flute
Walter Seebacher, clarinet
Reinhold Brunner, clarinet
Michael Krenn, saxophone
Mathilde Hoursiangou, piano
Berndt Thurner, percussion
Ivana Pristasova, violin
Petra Ackermann, viola
Roland Schueler, cello
Maximilian Ölz, double bass
Alexandra Dienz, double bass
and many more …

With the new SITUATIONS series, PHACE opens up scope for personal interpretations and breaks with all-encompassing realities. Shaped in the interplay of high-contrast sensory impressions, spontaneous, diverse connections arise between what is remembered and what is sounding at the moment. SITUATIONS kindles interacting sound spaces that fuel our imagination in the sharpest possible way.
In TUNES, fragments of memory intertwine to form inextricable vaults of sound and juxtapose ambiguities on ever new levels of meaning. STRATA digs for moments of authentic, honest expression in rooms flooded with stimuli. Sarhan’s curious HELL show is feverish and sarcastic: Rhythmic voices from off-screen meet contemporary sound phrases, mixed with set pieces from jazz, rock and pop. Powerful, repetitive, machine-like collages in RECALL prepare the ground for putting ourselves in the shoes of others, looking at their stories, discovering them – with amazing twists and turns.

Prior to each concert, Juri Giannini will discuss the music with the composers within the setting of “Salon PHACE”.

Termine in diesem Zyklus
FR 27.11.2020 KH Zyklus 1 – PHACE | TUNES – ensemble & electronics
DI 16.02.2021 KH Zyklus 2 – PHACE | STRATA – ensemble & electronics
DI 16.03.2021 KH Zyklus 3 – PHACE | HELL – narrator & ensemble
DO 27.05.2021 KH Zyklus 4 – PHACE | RECALL – ensemble

Follow the links for details about each program of the series.

narrator & ensemble 

PHACE | Hell

2.Oct.2021 // 19:30
Odeon Theater
Taborstraße 10, 1020 Wien

16.March.2021 // 19:30
Wiener Konzerthaus, Berio Saal
Covid19-cancellation!
PHACE Series 20/21 – N°3

ARTISTS

François Sarhan, Sprecher, Text und Musik 

PHACE
Alvaro Collao Leon, saxophone
Stefan Obmann, trombone
Berndt Thurner, percussion
Mathilde Hoursiangou, piano
Ivana Pristasova, violin
Maximilan Ölz, double bass
Samuel Toro Perez, electric guitar

The curious show “HELL” by Sarhan is feverish and sarcastic: Rhythmic voices from the off meet contemporary sound phrases, mixed with set pieces from jazz, rock and pop. Neither a show nor a concert. More like a diverse set in the form of a Radio Sarhan studio. The set presents eight musicians and microphones, chamber music generously interwoven with rock music, computers, samples, words, bodies that speak, music that speaks. In a feverishly sarcastic atmosphere reminiscent of the heyday of experimental rock and the spirit of Zappa, the dense score examines in detail the rhythms, hesitations and pauses of ordinary language. And it’s this expressive energy that is the star of the show: the voice of the narration, the dictaphone, the confession, the conversation. It creates its own rhythm, determines the phrasing and enlivens writing.

PROGRAM

François Sarhan
Hell for narrator and ensemble, 2005 (austrian premiere) 60’ 

ensemble 

PHACE | RECALL

27.May.2021 // 19:30
Wiener Konzerthaus, Berio Saal

PHACE Series 20/21 – N°4

A production by PHACE & Wiener Konzerthaus

ARTISTS

Lars Mlekusch, conductor

PHACE

How many faces do we meet without actually seeing them, without knowing their memories? With irony, strength and energy, RECALL tries to put us in the shoes of others, to look at their history, to discover them. In his work, Ondřej Adámek processes voice samples from friends and robot aspects of Japanese ways of life into powerful, repetitive, machine-like collages. “People / Time” by Pierre Jodlowski tells a story, or rather a few stories, about a decaying leaf, about streets where the white median strips become a measure of time, about burning faces that melt into one another. “USED REDUX” confronts the audience with seemingly incoherent, pulsating image sequences of two people, which are accompanied by throbbing, rhythmic musical patterns. The same images return in the last 10 minutes of Wolfgang Mitterer’s “networds 14 # 3” and change our perception in a changed musical context, which suddenly allows us to completely reinterpret the images we have seen.

PROGRAM

Ondřej Adámek
Ça tourne ça bloque
for 10 instruments and sampler (2007–08)

Jorge Sanchez-Chiong
USED REDUX for ensemble and video 11’

Pierre Jodlowski
PEOPLE TIME for six instruments, live-electronics and video 25’

Wolfgang Mitterer
networds 14#3 for ensemble and electronics (2021)  (UA) d:22’

ensemble  & electronics

PHACE | STRATA

16.Feb.2021 // 19:30
Wiener Konzerthaus, Berio Saal

PHACE Series 20/21 – N°2

A production by PHACE & Wiener Konzerthaus

ARTISTS

Nacho de Paz, conductor

PHACE

Alessandro Battici, flute
Reinhold Brunner, clarinet
Michael Krenn, saxophone
Stefan Obmann, trombone
Berndt Thurner, percussion
Mathilde Hoursiangou, piano
Ivana Pristasova, violin
Petra Ackermann, viola
Roland Schueler, cello
Alexandra Dienz, double bass
Alfred Reiter, sound

in cooperation with
ORF Österreichischer Rundfunk, Radio Österreich 1

VIDEO STREAM on 20.02.2021 (until 28.02.), starting at 20:00 Uhr here!

STRATA digs for moments of authentic, honest expression in rooms flooded with stimuli. In “Situation II/Dialoge”, Anahita Abbasi creates a wide variety of situations in which the musicians enter into dialogue-like communication in an extended instrumental context with sounds, sound sources and listeners. An exchange that arises not only through language, but also through purely sonic interaction and paves the way for a fundamental transformation of individual people and groups.

In “There’s no lack of void”, Yair Klartag deals with acoustic information overload that swallows up all meaning. Samuel Beckett provides the quote for the work title (from Waiting for Godot). “There is no shortage of emptiness” is an attempt to depict an oversupply of musical stimuli and to find moments of authentic, honest expression in the dense, overwhelming flow of musical events and ideas, without circling around oneself in a self-referential manner.

Martin Jaggi draws energy from contemplation in his work. In “Strata” he exposes one musical layer after the other and in doing so advances into ever deeper and older musical layers. Elisabeth Harnik and Lorenzo Troiani complete the program with two new works for PHACE.

PROGRAMM

Anahita Abbasi
Situation II / Dialoge (2016)
for ensemble 9’

Lorenzo Troiani
La vita delle conchiglie for 2 performer and ensemble (2020) (wp) 12‘
commissioned by PHACE, supported by Wiener Konzerthaus and SKE-Fonds

Martin Jaggi
Strata
for soprano sax, viola, percusssion and piano (2010-11) 10‘

Yair Klartag
There’s no lack of void
for ensemble (2016) (ÖEA) 10’

Elisabeth Harnik
someone will remember us for small ensemble (2020) (UA)  17‘
(Titel nach Sappho)
commissioned by PHACE, supported by Wiener Konzerthaus and SKE-Fonds

ensemble, electronics 

PHACE | TUNES

public performances cancelled due to Covid19

27.Nov.2020 // 19:30
Wiener Konzerthaus, Berio Saal

PHACE Series 20/21 – N°1

A production by Wien Modern, PHACE, Wiener Konzerthaus

ARTISTS

Nacho de Paz, conductor
Markus Sepperer, oboe

PHACE

Doris Nicoletti, flute
Reinhold Brunner, clarinet
Theresa Dinkhauser / clarinet (Schurig)
Michael Krenn, saxophone
Spiros Laskaridis, trumpet
Berndt Thurner, percussion
Igor Gross, percussion
Mathilde Hoursiangou, piano
Ivana Pristasova, violin 1
Anna Lindenbaum, violin 2
Petra Ackermann, viola
Roland Schueler, cello
Maximilan Ölz, double bass
Felix Pöchhacker, guitar
Tina Zerdin, harp
Alfred Reiter, sound

In the concert Tunes, lines and tracks, memories and meanings interweave to form mesmerising sound structures: The cry of the Phyllobates terribilis (golden poison frog), whose poison filled the blow dart arrows of the Columbian Embera, is the base material for the oboe section in Wolfram Schurig’s work; kokoi for oboe and ensemble paints a picture of the ambivalence of perfect beauty and death. Kaija Saariaho’s Lichtbogen (Arc of light), inspired by the northern lights of the arctic night sky, casts a sound net of vibrant colours, almost dream-like, ephemeral and nearly static. Franck Bedrossian’s Swing sends clearly traceable elements of jazz music into an interplay with sound identities. Johannes Maria Staud uses his new ensemble piece Am Horizont (… schon ganz woanders …) [At the horizon (… somewhere else already…)] to observe a strange construct of desire: Should I ever reach the horizon, it would be somewhere else already …

PROGRAM

Johannes Maria Staud
Am Horizont (…schon ganz woanders…)
music for ten instruments and pre-recorded sounds (2020)  11′
commissioned by PHACE, Osterfestival Tirol, with support by Wiener Konzerthaus and SKE-Fonds

Wolfram Schurig
kokoí for oboe and ensemble (wp) (2020) 15‘
commissioned by Wien Modern and PHACE, with support by SKE-Fonds

Kaija Saariaho
Lichtbogen for 9 instruments and live-electronics (1986) 19‘

Franck Bedrossian
Swing for 11 instruments (2009)  23’

a production by Wien Modern, PHACE & Wiener Konzerthaus