Opening concert impuls festival

A festival is by definition a time of celebration, and there are many things we want to celebrate in the program of the Opening Concert of the 8th Edition of the impuls Festival: on the occasion of his 80th birthday, we pay homage to Brian Ferneyhough, and welcome Francesco Filidei and Francesca Verunelli, who are tutoring at the impuls Academy for the first time.

Certainly there is, of course, the new works: the Austrian premiere of an Ulysses Network commission to Elena Rykova and a new composition by Dmitri Kourliandksi, created especially for Ensemble Schallfeld to be premiered at impuls 2023; and finally, we also celebrate Schallfeld’s fifth participation in impuls during the tenth anniversary year of the ensemble.

The common thread of this program is the inspiration from extra-musical elements: Whether it is a historical painting (as in “La Chute d’Icare”), or the illusion of movement created by static images (as in “Cinemaolio”), a poem by Eduardo Sanguineti (in the case of “Finito Ogni Gesto”), or places, lonely inner places in the case of Rykova, or quite real and quite crowded ones in the case of Kourliandski. Through ekphrasis or synesthesia, the music always seems to act as a metaphorical space. Therefore, the score itself lends itself to becoming an abstract place that can be (re)written, measured, or “inhabited”.

PROGRAM

Brian Ferneyhough La Chute d’Icare, for mixed Ensemble (1988)*

Dmitri Kourliandski Banlieue, for flute, clarinet, accordion, violin, viola, cello, double bass, live-electronics (2023, world premiere)**

Francesco Filidei Finito Ogni Gesto, for flute, clarinet, horn, percussion, violin, cello (2010)

Elena Rykova In the Presence of Absence, for clarinet, accordion, piano, violin, cello, amplification, electronics (2022, Austrian premiere)

Francesca Verunelli Cinemaolio, for flute, clarinet, piano, violin, viola, cello (2014)