Concerts Program
14. November & 15. November 2026 7:00pm
airborne extended
All of the compositions were created as part of the SaS (Sound as Score) Composer Lab 2025/26.
Amy Brandon
Illapsis 2026 WP, 5min
For airborne extended (flute, recorder / Paetzold, harp, harpsichord) and double bass
The title Illapsis is derived from the Latin illapsus and refers to the sliding into, penetration, or entry of one thing into another, or a sudden fall or attack. In the piece, various timbral transformations of an audio score—closely coordinated in time—give rise to an Illapsis composed of multiple versions of the same score. The audio score uses recordings from an improvisation session and explores the sonic universe of a snare drum and cymbals. The recording was made in July 2025 with percussionist Erin Donovan in Halifax, Nova Scotia.
For the ensemble, studying the audio score in order to effectively translate the timbres to their own instruments is an important prerequisite for the interpretation. During the performance, the audio score should serve merely as a reminder of the general form and sequence of the sonic events and should not be necessary as a listening score. While the form, gestures, timbre, and - in the second movement - the pitches of the audio score should be imitated as closely as possible, the exact timing relative to the recording is more flexible; each performer may execute their part up to 2 seconds before or after the timing of the sound event in the audio score, thereby creating a desired delay effect in the individual interpretations.
Luc Döbereiner
Afterimage 2026 WP, 15 min
For airborne extended (flute, recorder, harp, harpsichord) and electronics
Afterimage continues my exploration of translation, mediation, and mimesis - that is, processes in which one form is transformed by another and sounds shine through other sounds. Here, mimesis does not mean mere imitation, but rather a transformative act. To translate a sound is to bring it into being anew. The piece employs a four-part audio score, which the performers receive through bone-conduction headphones and translate onto their instruments. Because the slow transitions in timbre - particularly for the harp and harpsichord - are sometimes difficult to reproduce, the act of imitation simultaneously reveals the difference, and this tension between similarity and deviation is itself mimetic.
Compositionally, the piece moves through three configurations of the four voices: parallel translations of the same sound, dispersed aspects of a fused whole, and finally independent streams in which traces of their shared origin still resonate. Time and again, the audio score emerges through the speakers, seems to shine through the ensemble, and creates a layered field in which the original and the translation overlap and refract one another.
Carlos Iturralde
Memento / Audite 2026 WP, 15min
For two interwoven duets, soloist, and live electronics
For airborne extended (flute, recorder, harp, harpsichord) double bass, live electronics, and the audience
As in other works of mine, Memento/Audite creates a situation in which I share my fascinations, habits, and rituals surrounding listening with the audience. Many of these are psychoacoustic phenomena - such as beating frequencies, difference tones, masking, filtering, and various types of distortion. The piece unfolds as a series of acoustic ecosystems, each of which focuses on one of these phenomena. These ecosystems are gradually constructed by the performers through a complex and dynamic system of algorithms that could be described as a series of listening exercises or games. At certain moments, these exercises also invite the audience to participate. Through specific actions performed by the audience, they can become aware of certain perceptual phenomena - some of which are everyday and often taken for granted, others less so. For example, how the position of the head relates to phase, or how sound perception changes when we cover, touch, or rub our ears. The composition explores how such situations can take on significance within a dramaturgy.
The piece is performed in the dark. This decision is both conceptual and practical in nature. It stems in part from a long-held desire to write a work for the cellist Maricarmen Graue, a friend who gradually lost her sight. The darkness thus partially mimics her state of perception, while at the same time allowing light interventions to become expressive and meaningful. Each section contains one or more light interventions that introduce an additional visual narrative layer, thereby eliciting changes in auditory perception. Each performer is equipped with an LED lamp directed at her. When the light is activated, it signals to stop playing and perform specific gestures, inviting the audience to imitate them. At first, these gestures may seem purely visual, but as soon as the audience begins to imitate them, they realize that the gestures either produce sounds or alter perception.
The audio score consists of the following combination:
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the instrumental sounds, which are shaped by performance instructions described in a script for each section
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the verbal instructions played back in real time through headphones
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and the way in which the performers trigger or respond to electronically generated sounds.
Sofía Matus Cancino
Clove Oil (Nelkenöl / Aceite de Clavo) 2026 WP, 8:34min
For airborne extended (flute, recorder, harp, harpsichord) and tape
The audio score for Clove Oil is based on a bilingual lyrical essay I wrote, with the intention of creating acoustic structures rooted in the natural speech melodies of Mexican Spanish and North American English. What is particularly interesting is how the musicians respond to the codes of spoken language during a performance. The text, spoken in both languages by the Mexican-American singer Noemy Esparza-Isaacson, serves as the basis for the composition. The performers are instructed to focus on changes in pitch and rhythm when listening to Spanish, and on semantic meaning when listening to English. This gives rise to two different cognitive approaches to music-making.
Ursula Winterauer
Remnants of Reason 2026 WP, 7min
Cycle 1
For airborne extended (flute, recorder, harp, harpsichord) and tape
At the heart of the composition are contemporary media artifacts and their power to shape our perceptions, emotions, and beliefs. Fragments from news reports, science fiction, and horror films circulate throughout the piece like unstable signals - they appear abruptly, change, and disappear again before they can coalesce into meaning.
Detached from their original sources, these fragments no longer function as information but as remnants of media authority. They come across as distorted, truncated, or exaggerated, revealing how messages shift during their transmission - how what is transmitted is never identical to what is received. Meaning becomes uncertain, fragile, and subject to constant reinterpretation.
The piece unfolds based on an arranged audio score composed of organic sounds, field recordings, samples, and electronic transformations. This score is partially audible to the audience and simultaneously serves as the starting point for the ensemble’s performance. The musicians take up these fragments and translate them into instrumental language. Through imitation, repetition, and transformation, they gradually move further away from the original - much like in the children’s game “Chinese Whispers,” in which the act of passing on the message itself already brings about change.
Dustin Zorn
b0x1 2026 WP, 10min
For airborne extended (flute, Paetzold, harp, harpsichord) and cyber-physical embedded system
b0x1 introduces a new conceptual model of an audio score that is performed using a cyber-physical embedded system. In b0x1, this system replaces the semantic functionality of a traditional score without explicitly prescribing the musical material. The audio score is understood not as a fixed medium, but as a communication tool. The score thus emerges in the context of the performance through the musicians’ interpretation and actions.
The box, an audio system, was developed and programmed to generate the electronic score for b0x1 in real time. It creates feedback loops that incorporate the musicians’ interpretations into its signal chain. The box influences the musicians’ musical relationships with one another through dynamic mappings and live electronic transformations. These transformations serve as a compositional technique for creating the structural and formal components of b0x1.