2026 Premiers
A piece for Aleph Guitar Quartet and SWR Vokalensemble. (24 voices, 4 amplified acoustic guitars, around 15’) Commission : Siemens Stiftung, Aleph quartet, SWR
The piece will be a conversation between the quartet to the vocal ensemble where each of them acts like one body, which changes radically as the conversation goes on. Even this initial definition of the choir and the quartet as separated entities will gradually come into question.
A piece for Handwerk ensemble. For now, the working title is : HERE. (app 60’)
HERE is a synesthetic opera for Handwerk Ensemble (spring 2026 and fall 2026 premiered at and commissioned by Witten Festival, and Miller Theater, New York). TEXTS: Various texts and text fragments will be used Authors: Daniil Ivanovich Kharms, Clifford Simak and possibly Can Xue. Handwerk is a six person ensemble with the line up of flute clarinet piano percussion violin and cello.
These are my first thoughts about the piece, which might change and will change…
During the Gaudeamus Festival I was lucky to spend a week with the ensemble and see their brilliant and quite shocking performance, where they stretched the field between individuality to group identity to the extreme. Each of them has a very strong artistic personality and each is a virtuoso on their instrument. However when they play together in unison, they become one organism. They create a merging of identities into a new and constantly evolving identity. Also: they stretch their performance from the instruments out into their body, into their speaking, acting and being so that the field of performance is in a vital continuum between virtuosity to searching for an expressive form.
All this has encouraged me to create a first ever instance in my work where the visions in the mind, the sources of my music, and my verbal channeling of these visions, will be enacted on the stage as a part of a piece. Where the verbal, visual, and metaphoric are an integral part of the weaving of the material and structure of the piece, and where I hunt for the moments of discovery and meaning. This is a search for a poetic narrative emerging from the smallest particles. Where does the movement start within a grain of sound or where does the sound split into a micro melody within a grain of a word? It is an illusionary place to be found in the very heart of the mind where things are not yet congealed into full sensorial definition. Perhaps it is an opera about the process of creating.
At the same time there will be a thread of a plot which will come from the Clifford Simak book CITY. The text of Daniil Ivanovich Kharms is the following text, which will appear about 3-4 times, everytime with a different length and a different interpretation.
“There was a red-haired man who had no eyes or ears. Neither did he have any hair, so he was called red-haired theoretically. He couldn't speak, since he didn't have a mouth. Neither did he have a nose. He didn't even have any arms or legs. He had no stomach and he had no back and he had no spine and he had no innards whatsoever. He had nothing at all! Therefore there's no knowing whom we are even talking about. In fact it's better that we don't say any more about him.”
A chamber work for Ensemble Meitar working title: A song for a lost child 15’ For flute clarinet, piano, violin and cello bassoon.
A Saxophone Quartet for Sigma. (45’-60’)
A windswept jumbled triptych with the working title Undersongs. Undersongs is a large-scale piece which brings together "Singing" of an unexpected kind. The songs will create a palimpsest of song-fragments, which is at times extremely subtle and fragile and at times resilient and surprisingly boisterous, even drunk. The Palimpsest and its songs are trying to survive the pressure of time, of a hostile nature (in the forms of hurricane winds or fires or tsunamis ) while at times dreaming of a utopian existence. The order of these actions is not completely linear.
2025 Premiers
The divine thawing of the core (50’)
The piece is written for Claire Chase, soloist, on Contrabass flute plus 6 flutes 6 oboes 6 trumpets trombone tuba piano perc, and 3 cellos. Premieres: July 2025 Darmstadt Ferienkurse, Time Spans festival NYC August 20 2025, Lucerne Festival (sept 6th 2025 ). Commission: Darmstadt Ferienkurse, Timespans and Lucerne Festival.
The divine thawing of the core is a piece in a close formation to the Ustvolskaya 2 symphony. It is written for and dedicated to Claire Chase who initiated the piece some years ago. Claire will play the Contrabass bass flute as soloist, with an orchestra of 6 flutes, 6 oboes, 6 trumpets, trombone, tuba, piano and perc, and 3 cellos, and the piece will be premiered in July 2025 in Darmstadt Festival , in August in Time Spans festival, New York, and in Lucerne Festival in September . It is commissioned by these festivals. Ustvolskaya’s work has always been extremely important for me. I admire its courage and its directness and especially its capacity to unify the experience of sound and form. Especially important is the second symphony, a piece which must be experienced live when one would like to unlock its sonic luminosity and uniqueness. I therefore decided to offer a piece in a close formation to the second symphony with the hope that this would also mean that Ustvolskaya’s piece might be played at the same concert. However, The divine thawing of the core may be played alone. The two pieces are not related further than the lineup.
The pairing of this orchestration with Claire Chase playing the contrabass flute were a strong guide for the piece. It is a very elemental, naked and maybe an intimate beginning,which is forced to melt away through irony into an elemental brutality, in an uneven process, which includes a demonic waltz, in a gradual thawing of its features into a kind of a wholly different way of expression which is more coherent, ceremonial and brutally primitive. During the time of writing the piece I was in Barcelona and saw the Basilica de la Sagrada Familia. Seeing this strange and gnarly structure clarified for me the structure of this piece. It is unperiodically cyclical, the repetitions creating cavernous corridors and strange temporal illusions in the unfolding of the piece.
The title comes from observing the political process of the last difficult years, and especially the change that Israel, my native country, is going through. It is hard to believe and devastating to follow the last 2 years, seeing how various long term underground processes and the 57 years long state of occupation are erupting, forcibly melting the last remaining vestiges of a culture which had some hope for peace and some ability for empathy into the darkness of ferocity and brutality to the degree of ethnic cleansing of the palestinians under the guise of religion. This forced thawing of a democratic society into a theocracy under the guise of the Jewish divinity (and supremacy) is deeply painful to any person who believes in humanity. However this is not a political piece. It comes from pain, it attempts to find a way to digest the incomprehensible ongoing in order to maintain some sanity.
NO! A lament for the innocent Duration: 16 minutes
Dedicated to and sung by Sofia Jernberg and Keren Motseri.
NO! Originated in 2017/8 when the Trump administration separated babies and children from their mothers. I am a mother. I am a human being, This became a constant visceral pain. I had to say NO! In my work. I was only able to start on NO! in 2024. With Israel (where I was born) and Gaza burning there were even more reasons to say NO! The piece builds the understated scream as something which comes out of the breath and out of pain. Only at the very end there are words:
Don't take my child away
Don't take my child
Don't
No
This piece has 2 versions
Version I: for an orchestra of 25 musicians and one high female voice, amplified. This group is recorded with different material and played over speakers from the back of the hall in a synchronized dialogue with the live group. One conductor.
Premiere: Los Angeles Phil. Daníel Bjarnason conducting, Sofia Jernberg Voice April 29th 2025 Los Angeles Philharmonic Green Umbrella Series, Walt Disney Concert Hall, Los Angeles, California, USA.
Version II: 2 groups of 25 musicians each, and one singer (high female voice) in each group, on two sides of the hall or of the stage. Premieres: WDR Orchestra, June 21 2025, with Sofia Jernberg and Keren Motseri conducted by Maxime Pascal; Orchestra Philharmonie de Paris, the same singers with Marin Alsop conducting, February 20 2026 and in Poland with the Polish National Radio Symphony Orchestra with Marin Alsop, October 28 2025. All three orchestras commissioned the piece.
2024 Premiers
The piece EZOV (24’) for Arditti Quartet’s 50 Anniversary. Written in a fateful time in the world, fraught with pain and suffering, Ezov is a piece that opens itself to an attempt of finding hope. This commission holds special significance as it celebrates Arditti quartet's 50th anniversary. It is dedicated to the quartet.
POETICA (Duration 60 min) is written for Steve Schick, percussion and voice, soloist, 4 percussion (and voice) and 3 strings: viola cello and double bass (strings are recorded and not live), and IRCAM. This piece is commissioned by Hellerau Dresden, where the premier will be on April 12th, 2024, by IRCAM and by Monday evening series in LA, and by Steven Schick and the Percussion de Strasbourg. Carlo Laurenzi is my collaborator at IRCAM.
Moths of hunger and awe (duration: 30’) for violin solo and a string orchestra written for Ilya Gringolts and the Muenchener Kammerorchetsra, was premiered with Bas Wiegers conducting on April 18th 2024 .Further, it was performed by Musikkollegium Winterthur with Ilya Gringolts and conducted by Matthias Pinscher and by the Hong Kong Sinfonietta, bas wiegers and Ilya Gringolts October 2025, Hong Kong.
A commission of the Münchener Kammerorchester, Musikkollegium Winterthur, and Hong Kong Sinfonietta.
Unforeseen dusk, bones into wings, 30’ for 6 amplified voices and a large orchestra 2023/24 for large orchestra with 6 voices. Premiere: SWR Symphonieorchester, Neue Vocalsolisten, Vimbayi Kaziboni Conducting, October 20, 2024 Donaueschinger Musiktage, Donaueschingen, Germany. 2025 in NYC. A commission of the N.Y. Phil Orchestra, Donaueschinger Musiktage.
2023 Premiers
Fast Darkness III for flute, Clarinet, piano, and string trio. The piece was premiered at Ultima Festival Norway, by Temporum Ensemble and Kai Grinde Myrann conducting. A commission of Temporum Ensemble for Ultima Festival, Oslo 2022. 16’
Seltene Erde alchimia communicationis (35’)for double bass with 4 recorded double basses, and 2 clarinets, Bassoon, saxophone(s), accordion, trumpet, 2 trombones Piano, Cembalo (on a sampler), 2 percussionists a string quartet and double bass. This is a commission of Zagreb Biennale, Warsaw Autumn and Wien Modern, and it will be premiered by Klangforum with Uli fussenegger on all contrabass voices and Johannes Kalitzke conducting.2026 Premiers
In 2021 after much day dreaming and preparatory work, I started directly writing the triptych VENA. VENA is comprised of three full evening pieces, performed individually or in succession over 3 evenings.
Unhistoric Acts was written mainly in 2020-2021. In July 2021 all the preparatory work is gathered, and the work is focused on IMMATERIAL . The last piece in the cycle, for Steven Schick, Percussion de Strasbourg, (live) and Catinblack (only recorded) and IRCAM will be written in 2023.
Here is the plan for the full cycle.
VENA (current, vein, pulse) A triptych 2020-2023
Three large scale pieces which are written between the years 2020- 2023:
POETICA; Unhistoric Acts; IMMATERIAL .
First panel: POETICA
for Steve Schick, percussion and voice, soloist, 4 percussion and 3 strings: viola cello and double bass (strings recorded and not live), and IRCAM Duration 60 min.
Middle panel: Unhistoric Acts
Unhistoric Acts is written for and dedicated to JACK string quartet and mixed 24 voices Choir Duration: 55minutes. SWR choir in Germany. Premier: Oct 14 /2021 donaueschinger Musiktage, American premier Philadelphia June 25 /2022.
“for the growing good of the world is partly dependent on unhistoric acts and things which are not so ill with you and me as they might have been, is half owing to the member who lived faithfully a hidden life and the rest is in unvisited tombs”- George Eliott / Middlemarch.
The text is comprised of 3 types of materials:
1-From Kohelet Ecclesiastes chapter 3: “everything has an appointed season, and there is a time for every matter under the sky. A time to be born and a time to die, a time to plant and a time to uproot”.
2-words taken from the context of George Floyd's murder. His sister's words, Bridgett Floyd: “He was never a stranger, and the words of Darnella Frazier who took the video of George Floyd. " I stayed up apologizing and apologizing to George Floyd for not doing more and not physically interacting and not saving his life"
3- Words thought off and spoken by the choir which every singer brings from their own world according to some indication. Mainly these individually spoken texts are about the pandemic.
This is a piece of rage and mourning. Rage about George Floyd's murder and the historical injustice it brings to the fore and mourning during the Covid pandemic. I would like to thank Amnon Wolman and Dorothea Hartmann for their help with figuring the piece out as I was composing.
Final, third panel: A speculation IMMATERIAL
An acapella Book of madrigals and an opera for Neue Vocalsolisten Stuttgart premier Feb/ 2022 Eclat. Austrian premier in Klangspueren Festival, Sept 2022 50'-65’ I am grateful to the Neue Vocalsolisten for their generosity and help with testing things, recording stuff, etc.
all singers are amplified.
This piece is the summation of the cycle and perhaps the most daring jump into a new form, and a new form of expression: utmost physicality combined with utmost abstraction and modulating between the senses.
The first movement is a book of madrigals, for six voices. The book is a live archive of short connected fragments, each fragment combining one of our senses and one of the universal sensation, for example: touch - sadness/// smell - surprise /// hearing - delirium///
The composition of these distilled fragments invents an experience of listening: each of the fragments evokes a different way to tune one's ears: the listener can smell, taste, see, hear or touch an essence of sensation or emotion. I have worked in this direction in the recent years touching on it tangentially, but never so directly and with such a strong focus on this question of pure and most immediate sensorial perception. By making this a main concern in this book of madrigals I hope to undertake a jump towards a new form of expression, extremely direct and physical to the degree that it becomes a kind of sensorial drama of naked emotions/ sensations. No story or explanations.
The main part of IMMATERIAL is the imagined, immaterial opera. The sensorial drama of the madrigals will become a wordless /storyless opera where pure sensations and modulations between sensory perceptions from visual sound to felt (touched) sound for example create an experience where the listener is provoked to become their own storyteller as sound becomes a provocation, a trigger of experience.