Bienale Koper
3 concert: LIGHT - Neofonia
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Event Date: Nov 30, 2022

Event Time: 7:00 pm

Location: Koper Regional Museum hall

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Zvokotok at Bienale Koper, in collaboration with Zavod Sploh
Production: Zavod Sploh

Water is a great conductor of sound, but not of light. Most sunlight that hits a lake or ocean is absorbed within the first 20 – 50 m depth. »Without water, everything is just chemistry; add water and you get a life!«
Felix Franks, professor from the University of Cambridge


PROGRAM:

Urška Pompe (1969): Between you and me, for flute, viola and harp (2006)*
Beat Furrer (1954):  …cold and calm and moving, for flute, harp, violin, viola and cello (1992)

Toru Takemitsu (1930): Toward the Sea III for alt flute and arp(1989)
I. The Night
II. Moby Dick

Jonathan Harvey (1939-2012): Death of Light, Light of Death for oboe, harp, violin, viola and cello (after Grünewald’s ‘Crucifixion’ in the Issenheim Altarpiece) (1998)
I. Jesus Crucified
II. Mary Magdalene
III. Mary, Mother of Jesus
IV. John the Apostle
V. John the Baptist

*Between you and me is a composition from 2006 and was written and presented at the Expan festival in Austria that year. The three instruments: flute, harp and viola are connected in a single stream of energy, which grows through the process of mutual complements, but also seemingly calms down. The song will be played in Slovenia for the first time.

Performers:
Ensemble Neofonia
Zinajda Kodrič, flute
Kristien Ceuppens, oboe and english horn
Urška Rihteršič, harp
Doris Šegula, violin
Maja Rome, viola
Katarina Leskovar, cello
Steven Loy, conductor

Neofonía is a Ljubljana-based ensemble dedicated to exploring the wealth and diversity of music composed in the last half century that has traditionally been absent from the cultural landscape in Slovenia. It is comprised of top-level Slovenian instrumentalists passionate about contemporary music. Since its establishment in 2010 Neofonía have already introduced a number of important and groundbreaking works to Slovenian audiences by some of the most powerful and influential composers of the last 50 years such as György Ligeti, Gérard Grisey, Tristan Murail, Helmut Lachenmann, Luigi Nono, Salvatorre Sciarrino, Kaija Saariaho, Jonathan Harvey, Brian Ferneyhough, Wolfgang Rihm and Fausto Romitelli, as well as music by exciting younger composers such as Ondřej Adámek, Pierre Jodlowski, Dai Fujikura, Paul Clift, Aurélio Edler-Copes  and many others. Since their inception, Neofonía has acted as resident ensemble of the Predihano contemporary music series produced by Cankarjev dom. The ensemble’s inaugural concert, presenting the Slovenian premiere of Grisey’s masterpiece Les espaces acoustiques, was hailed by critics and audiences as an indisputable success. Their Ligeti project four years later featured major works including the Chamber Concerto and Piano Concerto for the first time in Slovenia and was met with equal acclaim. In the last two years Neofonía has focused on works for ensemble and electronics.
 
Based in Slovenia, conductor Steven Loy is known as an enthusiastic advocate for new music. He is the founder and artistic director of the Ljubljana-based ensemble Neofonía, with whom he has given first performances in Slovenia of many important works from the late 20th and early 21st centuries. He was the artistic director of the Predihano new music series produced by Cankarjev dom in 2010 and served from 2011-2018 as artistic advisor. As a conductor, he works regularly with the Slovenian Philharmonic and the RTV Slovenia Symphony Orchestra in both contemporary and more traditional orchestral repertoire, as well as with smaller groups such as the Slovenian Philharmonic String Orchestra, the Slovenian Percussion Project SToP, ensemble MD7 (with whom he has given over 70 world premieres) and Slowind. He has been a guest conductor with one of the world’s leading new music ensembles Klangforum Wien, as well as Ensemble Experimental of the SWR Experimental Studio Freiburg and the New Music Orchestra in Katowice, and has also guest conducted the Mihail Jora Philharmonic (Bacau), Savaria Symphony (Szombathely), Miskolc Symphony Orchestra and the Brașov Philharmonic. He is active also as a composer; his music has been performed by the Slovenian Philharmonic. A deeply committed educator, he is an assistant professor of conducting at the Ljubljana Academy of Music where he is co-coordinator of the New Music Studio, leading the new music ensemble and teaching contemporary music performance practice, in addition to teaching a course on advanced rhythm techniques and coaching chamber music. He holds degrees in conducting (École Normale du Musique de Paris, Georgia State University) and composition (University of the Arts Philadelphia, Academy of Music Ljubljana) and has actively participated in masterclasses with many well-known conductors including Péter Eötvös, Helmuth Rilling, Jorma Panula, Lothar Zagrosek (Accademia Chigiana Siena), Jean-Marc Burfin, Zoltán Peskó and Yuri Simonov.