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Basel Sinfonietta

Commission to Michael Pelzel

Basel Sinfonietta (CH)

For a concert project of the Basel Sinfonietta in cooperation with the Festival Acht Brücken Köln, the Swiss composer Michael Pelzel (*1978) will compose a work for violin and orchestra that will be premiered at the Kölner Philharmonie and subsequently performed in Basel for the first time in Switzerland. The work, entitled Carnatic Pandora, was written by Michael Pelzel for the violinist Carolin Widmann. The composition commission to Michael Pelzel and the performance of the work are supported by the Ernst von Siemens Music Foundation.

In recent years, Michael Pelzel has made several trips to India. On the occasion of these study visits, he intensively studied the classical Carnatic music of South India and its special rhythmic structures, which left a lasting impression on him and, to a certain extent, represent the origin of his new violin concerto. Thus, in his concerto for violin and orchestra, refrain-like, intervallically recurring elements play just as much a formally structuring role as the constantly developing parts. A very high level of instrumental virtuosity is to be paired with a refined, quite noisy sound connection to the orchestra. Small aleatoric elements, i.e. elements dependent on chance, are also intended to open up freedom for improvisational music-making, giving the soloist but also the orchestra a very specific role. This work thus borrows from Helmut Lachenmann's sentence that to compose is to build an instrument, which seems to be apt for Michael Pelzel's music in his exploration of non-European musical traditions and their influence on his works.

Further information:
baselsinfonietta.ch/en

Dates

May 5, 2023
Kölner Philharmonie, Cologne

May 7, 2023
Stadtcasino, Basel