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Work Information

Chaya Czernowin: IMMATERIAL

Immaterial is the final part of the triptych „Vena“ and itself consists of the two parts A book of Madrigals and Intermezzos and Sound theater. The piece is an experiment on the question of what happens when the voice is detached from its affectedness. What happens when the voice is just a sound, or the essence of an emotion, or a color, a movement, a line? The main part of Immaterial is an imagined, immaterial „sound theater“: the sensory drama of the madrigals becomes a wordless, storyless theater, where pure sensations and modulations in sensory perception from visual sound to felt sound encourage the audience to become their own storytellers.

 

In this work I try to find out what happens when the voice is released from its role. What happens when the voice is a sound, or the essence of an emotion, or a color, a movement, a line. The main part is an imaginary, immaterial sound theater, where the sensory drama of the madrigals becomes a deep underwater theater. Pure sensations and modulations between visual sound and felt sound create a provocation and allow listeners to become their own storytellers.

(Chaya Czernowin)

 

World premiere on February 2, 2022 at ECLAT Festival Neue Musik with the Neue Vocalsolisten.
Commissioned by Musik der Jahrhunderte, financed by the Ernst von Siemens Music Foundation.

Biography

Chaya Czernowin

Chaya Czernowin (*1957 in Haifa, Israel) composes operas, orchestral and chamber works with and without electronics, which are performed worldwide. She was Composer in Residence at the 2005/06 Salzburg Festival and at the Lucerne Festival 2013. She is the Walter Bigelow Rosen Professor of Music at Harvard University and has been Professor of Composition at the University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna and the University of California San Diego Czernowin works imaginatively and analytically with metaphors as a means of reaching a sound world which is unfamiliar and is never taken for granted attempting to give a voice to what is internally hidden from one’s view.

 

Her major works include the opera Pnima, the orchestral piece Maim, HIDDEN for quartet and electronics, the operas Infinite Now and Heart Chamber (2018/19), The Fabrication of Light (2019/20), and Atara (2021).

 

Czernowin’s work has been awarded the Ernst von Siemens Music Foundation Composers’ Prize, the Guggenheim Fellowship, the Fromm and Kranichsteiner Music Prizes of the Darmstadt Summer Courses, among others. Her operas Pnima (2000) and Infinite Now (2017) were voted among the best world premieres of the year in the international critics’ poll of Opernwelt.  Her CD the quiet was awarded the Preis der Deutschen Schallplattenkritik.  Her work is published by Schott, she is a member of the Akademie der Künste Berlin and the Akademie der Schönen Künste Munich, and is on the board of the European Academy of Music Theater.

 

chayaczernowin.com

 

Biography

Neue Vocalsolisten

The seven singers are constantly searching for new forms of vocal expression in exchange with composers. One focus is the work with artists who virtuously exploit the possibilities of digital media, with a delight in networking, in playing with genres, in dissolving space, perspectives and functions. Interdisciplinary formats between music theater, performance, installation and concert staging characterize up to 30 world premieres a year. In addition to vocal chamber music theater, the Neue Vocalsolisten explore “magic spaces” together with artists and web designers – performance formats between analog and digital perception. Master classes and a digital “NVS Academy” introduce young artists to the challenges of experimental vocal music. In 2021, the Neue Vocalsolisten became the first ensemble to be awarded the Silver Lion of the Biennale di Venezia. In 2022 they received the Premio Abbiati della critica.

 

 

 

Neue Vocalsolisten
© Martin Sigmund
Biography

Chaya Czernowin

Chaya Czernowin (*1957 in Haifa, Israel) composes operas, orchestral and chamber works with and without electronics, which are performed worldwide. She was Composer in Residence at the 2005/06 Salzburg Festival and at the Lucerne Festival 2013. She is the Walter Bigelow Rosen Professor of Music at Harvard University and has been Professor of Composition at the University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna and the University of California San Diego Czernowin works imaginatively and analytically with metaphors as a means of reaching a sound world which is unfamiliar and is never taken for granted attempting to give a voice to what is internally hidden from one’s view.

 

Her major works include the opera Pnima, the orchestral piece Maim, HIDDEN for quartet and electronics, the operas Infinite Now and Heart Chamber (2018/19), The Fabrication of Light (2019/20), and Atara (2021).

 

Czernowin’s work has been awarded the Ernst von Siemens Music Foundation Composers’ Prize, the Guggenheim Fellowship, the Fromm and Kranichsteiner Music Prizes of the Darmstadt Summer Courses, among others. Her operas Pnima (2000) and Infinite Now (2017) were voted among the best world premieres of the year in the international critics’ poll of Opernwelt.  Her CD the quiet was awarded the Preis der Deutschen Schallplattenkritik.  Her work is published by Schott, she is a member of the Akademie der Künste Berlin and the Akademie der Schönen Künste Munich, and is on the board of the European Academy of Music Theater.

 

chayaczernowin.com

 

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