Basel Sinfonietta

Den Sorte Diamant

7th June 20.00

Programme

Isabel Mundry: Endless Sediments For Chamber Orchestra (2018-19)*
Ylva Lund Bergner: dOWN (2024)***
Gemma Ragués Pujol: Trust (2024)**
-break-
Maja Solveig Kjelstrup Ratkje: Considering Icarus For Solo Trombone And Orchestra (2021)*
Cathy Milliken: Earth Plays V: Ediacaran Fields For Orchestra And Audience (2021)*

* Danish Premiere
** World Premiere, Commissioned By Basel Sinfonietta
*** World Premiere, Commissioned By Klang Festival

In this year's opening concert, The Basel Sinfonietta presents a program of music by five composers who all represent strikingly different musical traditions and compositional practices. While the program reveals a wide array of stylistic approaches, the five composers, Isabel Mundry, Gemma Ragués Pujol, Ylva Lund Bergner, Maja Solveig Kjelstrup Ratkje, and Cathy Milliken, are united by their courage to cross boundaries and explore new trajectories. Their participatory, experimental, or improvisational work surprises and reveals new perspectives – not only in musical terms.

In the orchestral work Endless Sediments, German composer Isabel Mundry explores traces of music that are temporally or spatially distant. In her differentiated tonal language, a contemplation of the relationships between time, space, and perception flows throughout the work. Temporal distance is also a key element in Australian composer Cathy Milliken's Ediacaran Fields: for this piece, Milliken drew inspiration from 500-million-year-old fossils found at a South Australian site. Likewise, the natural world was the source of inspiration for Swedish-Danish composer Ylva Lund Bergner's orchestral work F-Low-M, commissioned by KLANG, which explores the interplay between the wind and the trees.

In a combination of orchestral music and performance art, the young Barcelona-born composer and performance artist Gemma Ragués Pujol was commissioned by Basel Sinfonietta to write a new work in which the orchestra echoes and colorizes the words of a narrator to create a piece of musical cubism in which rhythm and text play a leading role. And in Considering Icarus, a trombone concerto by Norwegian singer and composer Maja S. K. Ratkje, the soloist Stephen Menotti is encouraged to pursue the loftiest of ambitions and in doing so, set the music flying.

Supported by
KANTONBASEL-STADT, PROHELVETIA,GGG, DR.H.C.EMILEDREYFUS-STIFTUNG, PLATTFORMLEIMENTAL, ERNSTGÖHNERSTIFTUNG, FÖRDERVEREINBASELSINFONIETTA, HEIVISCH, FONDATIONNICATI-DELUZE

Venue

Den Sorte Diamant

Søren Kierkegaards Plads 1 1221 København K

> See Map

Artists

Basel Sinfonietta

Full symphonic orchestra specializing in contemporary music. Driven by its commitment to perform music in tune with the times, the Basel Sinfonietta has been transcending classical concert conventions since its founding in 1980

Titus Engel (1975)

Swiss conductor known for his extensive repertoire from a wide range of musical eras. In 2020 Titus Engel was named Conductor of the Year by Opernwelt magazine, and starting in the 2023, Engel took over as principal conductor of the Basel Sinfonietta.

Stephen Menotti

Soloist trombone, Basel Symfonietta

Isabel Mundry (1963)

German composer whose work is characterized by a differentiated tonal language in which she reflects on the relationships between time, space, and perception.

Gemma Ragués Pujol (1993)

Composer, writer, and performer specialized in contemporary and experimental music. Her pieces seek to be absurd, puzzling, and funny.

Ylva Lund Bergner (1981)

Swedish composer who writes mostly for smaller ensembles. She often focuses on dramatic music such as monodrama or chamber opera, text being an important inspiration for her work.

Maja Solveig Kjelstrup Ratkje (1973)

Norwegian composer and performer. At heart of her music lies Ratkje’s own voice, an open door to her individual musicianship and a constant tool for realigning her work with natural expressions and human truths.

Cathy Miliken (1956)

Internationally award-winning performer and composer and founding member of Ensemble Modern known for her evocative instrumental and vocal works.