Ensemble Resonanz / Saerom Park / Dirk Rothbrust
Portrait Rebecca Saunders / Hamburg International Music Festival
Zen-Meister der Aufmerksamkeit
Therapy for the restless and the overstimulated – that’s one way to describe Rebecca Saunders’s music. »She focuses the ear on minute gradations of timbre and intonation, and turns her performers into Zen masters of attention and focus«, writes the Guardian. How fortunate, then, that no less than five Elbphilharmonie concerts are dedicated to Saunders this season. Bringing this spotlight to a close is the award-winning Ensemble Resonanz – with a full-length Saunders programme, of course.
Characteristically of Saunders, the Concerto for Violoncello, Strings and Percussion explores a minute musical ornament, the trill. In the hands of the cellist Saerom Park, it is transformed, says Saunders, into an »unpredictable sound fragment«. A backdrop of shimmering overtones and glissandi animates the piece »Unbreathed« with an eerie magic. And to close, »All that dust« is an opportunity for the percussion to shine, brilliantly performed by Dirk Rothbrust. As one critic brilliantly summarised, »Saunders is looking to create moments of such intensity that music ceases to simply be sound, but becomes an all-consuming synaesthetic experience.«
Performers
Ensemble Resonanz
Saerom Park violoncello
Dirk Rothbrust percussion
conductor Gregor A. Mayrhofer
Programme
Rebecca Saunders
Module 1 »melody« / from: Dust
Module 5 »metal« / from: Dust
Module 3 »triangles« / from: Dust
Module 4 »crystal« / from: Dust
Unbreathed
William Byrd
Fantasia a 6 No. 2 in G minor
Rebecca Saunders
Ire / Concerto for Violoncello, Strings and Percussion
Breath
Festival
Hamburg International Music Festival
Spotlight
Rebecca Saunders