Waves   FURRER
NEMTSOV (premiere)

Beat Furrer, who turned 70 last December, is one of Europe’s most influential contemporary composers and has a reputation for addressing social and socio-critical issues in his works. His Akusmata was inspired by Pythagoras’ enigmatic aphorisms and wise sayings, which resemble an inhomogeneous set of rules of a fantastic society: Some are clearly understandable, others are reminiscent of riddles by da Vinci, and some have a strangely grotesque quality to them. With this cycle, Furrer creates a new reality, a new space in which music can resonate and stand on its own – an enigmatic world that exists only in the ear.

For a younger composer, Phace commissioned a work from Sarah Nemtsov. In from shore to shore, she immerses herself in the flowing currents alternating between individual and collective consciousness to be found in Virginia Woolf’s 1931 novel “The Waves”. Nine instrumental voices interact with, next to and against one another in space – sometimes individually, sometimes as a group – embedded in an expanded instrumental-electronic sound space. They seem to be searching for the way in which multiple selves and multiple perspectives can weave together a pluralistic truth.

Ensemble Phace, Cantando Admont
Dir: Cordula Bürgi

Programme:

Beat Furrer (*1954)
Akusmata (2019/20)

Sarah Nemtsov (*1980)
from shore to shore (2024/25, UA)
Commissioned by PHACE, in collaboration with Easter Festival Tyrol, with the kind support of the Ernst von Siemens Music Foundation