Commissions to Vykintas Baltakas & Yiran Zhao

Founded in 2020, the Munich-based ensemble der/gelbe/klang has quickly become a highly regarded player in the field of new music in Germany. With the regular awarding of commissions, der/gelbe/klang aims to expand its repertoire in the coming years and establish continuous collaboration with composers, especially from the younger generation. In 2025, commissions will be awarded to Vykintas Baltakas and Yiran Zhao, made possible by the Ernst von Siemens Music Foundation.

Vykintas Baltakas has been working on a cycle entitled Cladi since 2020. Cladi are ‘closed lineages’: a ‘systematic unit that contains the last common ancestor and all his descendants’ (source: Wikipedia). This type of family tree is the model for the formal development in Baltakas’ Cladi cycle: one motif gives rise to the next, and all the works in the cycle are related to one another. Cladi II was commissioned by the ensemble der/gelbe/klang and funded by the Ernst von Siemens Music Foundation in 2021. Baltakas now wants to write the final Cladi V for der/gelbe/klang again; it will use all the instruments that appear in movements I-IV. der/gelbe/klang will play the complete cycle as a world premiere (and the premiere of Cladi V).

Since 2018, dramaturge Julian Kämper, multimedia artist Felix Kruis and sound engineer Dominik Breinlinger have been working on 3D audio techniques and their artistic potential. This led to a project in cooperation with the der/gelbe/klang ensemble: 3D headphone concerts. Yiran Zhao is composing her new work for that occasion: an ‘avatar’ dressed in red, who represents the audience wearing headphones on stage, wears a binaural microphone in his ears, which can be used to record three-dimensional hearing. The audio signals are transmitted in real time to the visitors’ (wireless) headphones. This means that you hear through the avatar’s ears, and the musicians play for only one person listening. Every head movement, every time the avatar or the musicians turn their back, every approach or physical barrier can be specifically arranged to combine individual sounds into an enjoyable 3D soundscape at the ear.

Further information:
dergelbeklang.de

Dates

Cladi cycle:
Autumn 2026
Festival Muzikos Ruduo, Vilnius

3D headphone concert:
November 2026
schwere reiter, Munich