Commissions to Zara Ali, Jakob Diehl & Lucia Kilger

Sound and image worlds as a strategy for inciting a lively desire for change are among the central interests of ensemble mosaik. The ensemble has awarded three commissions to Zara Ali, Jakob Diehl and Lucia Kilger, made possible by the Ernst von Siemens Music Foundation. Although the three composers pursue very different aesthetic approaches in their works, they all deal with the concept of reality and its possible extensions into the surreal.

In the new composition by Zara Ali (*1995) for 5 musicians, live electronics and video projections, the musicians are imagined as descendants of humanity, as so-called “Android Brain Emulations”, based on the book The Age of EM by economist and sociologist Robin Hanson. Their sonically mediated behaviour moves between familiar everyday forms of expression and strange, surreal ones. “They are energetic, intelligent and insatiably curious virtual-physical hybrids trying to perceive and understand music through their love of food. Their communication with each other is not linear, but takes the form of a counterpoint of ideas, images, sounds and conversations that flow simultaneously,” says Zara Ali. The edible sound objects and the instrumental sounds alienated live in surround sound appear surreal in this visually immersive spatial composition, which is characterised by the optimal positioning of loudspeakers and a special lighting design.

Jakob Diehl (*1978) has been active for many years as an actor, speaker, singer, composer and member of the dark jazz band Taumel. As a composer for the concert hall, his artistic concerns are also characterised by this professional versatility. Drawing on the surrealist representations and narrative styles he is familiar with from literature, the visual arts and film, he has developed an instrumental music of surrealism for his new work Abendland. This will unfold on the basis of a dramaturgy of tonal colourations and distortions of simple, sometimes even monotonous material that can only be deciphered in retrospect, originating from several parallel sound worlds and sometimes experiencing confrontational intensifications.

In FOMOus, an ensemble composition, Lucia Kilger will deal with the reality of life, especially for the younger generation, which is characterised by simultaneity, fast pace, sensory overload and the mutual interpenetration of analogue and digital spheres, sometimes giving rise to surreal worlds of perception. In order to artistically process the longing, curiosity and the urge for constant connection with simultaneously existing realities of life, the composer chooses an intermedial approach, which she uses to explore the utopian potential of surreal changes, expansions and shifts in reality. Excessive sensory overload from all directions plays just as much a role as the sustainable opening of spaces for contemplation, development and resonance.

Further information:
ensemble-mosaik.de

Date

February 9, 2025
Theaterhaus Stuttgart (Eclat Festival)