Concert 1
19.30
Filmtheatre at the Swiss Museum of Transport
Ensemble of the Lucerne Festival Contemporary Orchestra (LFCO)
Johanna Malangré conductor
Sofia Jernberg soprano
Markus Güdel lighting design
“Video/Opera”
Clara Maïda
Web Studies for violin, viola, harp, prepared piano, live electronics, and interactive video
Swiss premiere
12 min
Julius Eastman
Prelude to The Holy Presence of Joan d’Arc for solo soprano
12 min
Fausto Romitelli
An Index of Metals
video opera for soprano, electronics, ensemble, and multimedia projection based on texts by Kenka Lèkovich video by Paolo Pachini and Leonardo Romoli
50 min
This concert has no intermission.
CHF 50
The third edition of Forward starts on the biggest screen in Switzerland: the Filmtheatre at the Swiss Museum of Transport, where we will show An Index of Metals. In this video opera created shortly before his premature death in 2004, the Italian Fausto Romitelli transgressed all boundaries of genre. Sound, video projection and lighting, new music, rock and techno, instrumental sonorities and the electronically filtered soprano of Sofia Jernberg all merge together into a “magma of flowing tones, shapes, and colors” — an overwhelming synesthetic, and even psychedelic, experience. The French artist Clara Maïda similarly intertwines video and music in Web Studies, reflecting on our hyper-connected world in which “every micro-movement can induce an intense upheaval …”
Sat 18.11.
Concert 2
18.30
KKL Luzern, Concert Hall
Ensemble of the Lucerne Festival Contemporary Orchestra (LFCO)
Marco Blaauw trumpet
Sebastian Schottke sound design
Markus Güdel lighting design
“Film/Music”
Marcus Schmickler
Richter’s Patterns for large ensemble, computer, and film
a film by Corinna Belz and Gerhard Richter
Swiss premiere
34 min
Rebecca Saunders
Moving Picture 946-3 Kyoto music for solo trumpet and acoustically manipulated sound for a film by Corinna Belz and Gerhard Richter
Swiss premiere
35 min
CHF 50
The KKL Luzern will itself turn into a cinema with two works that combine music, painting, and film into a total work of art. Director Corinna Belz assembled segments from paintings by Gerhard Richter into an algorithmic film. In parallel to this, Marcus Schmickler created a score based on the same constructive procedures: film music that doesn’t merely provide accompaniment but functions independently. Another joint project by Belz and Richter inspired Rebecca Saunders to write a piece for the trumpeter Marco Blaauw: the film Moving Picture 946-3 fascinated her with “its radiance, its mesmerizing and absolute focus, and in particular how one’s sense of time becomes suspended.”
© Christine ChapmanConcert 3 — Late Night
22.00
KKL Luzern, Concert Hall
Ensemble of the Lucerne Festival Contemporary Orchestra (LFCO)
Markus Güdel lighting design
“Ritual”
Julius Eastman
Femenine
70 min
This concert has no intermission.
CHF 20
Right in the middle of things instead of merely in the audience: in a special late-night setting, you can get to know Julius Eastman. As a gay Black man, he was a unique figure among the American Minimalists. He was a trailblazer in addressing racism and homophobia in his work but died impoverished and forgotten in 1990 — only to be rediscovered in recent years. You will share the stage with the musicians in this concert, becoming part of the performance. Using delicate bell sounds and a catchy vibraphone motif, Eastman develops a repetitive sound stream in Femenine that expands Minimalism by using improvisational elements: a trance-like ritual. “The end sounds like the angels opening up heaven … Should we say euphoria?”
Concert 4
18.30
KKL Luzern, Concert Hall
Ensemble of the Lucerne Festival Contemporary Orchestra (LFCO)
Mariano Chiacchiarini conductor
Sofia Jernberg soprano
Winnie Huang gestural performer
Markus Güdel lighting design
“Death/Life”
Charles Uzor
8’46’’ George Floyd in memoriam
9 min
Improvisation by Sofia Jernberg
5 min
Charles Uzor
Katharsis Kalkül (“Catharsis Calculation”): George Floyd in memoriam for ensemble
world premiere
commissioned by Lucerne Festival with support from Pro Helvetia, Arts Council of Switzerland
20 min
Liza Lim
Multispecies Knots of Ethical Time for 15 musicians, gestural performer, and video
video by Morena Barra
world premiere
commissioned by Lucerne Festival
45 min
CHF 50
8 minutes, 46 seconds: ever since the brutal killing of the African American George Floyd during a police operation in Minneapolis, this time span has symbolized racist violence. The Swiss Nigerian composer Charles Uzor has worked through his reactions to this event in a nightmarish piece comprising nothing but the sounds of breathing; his new work Catharsis Calculation takes this further. Liza Lim’s new ensemble piece is also about time: about our individual finiteness and about the ecological crisis. The protagonist is a river — a symbol for transience and (endangered) continuity. In a video by Morena Barra, the performer Winnie Huang translates it into sound using two violins, performing on the stage in an interactive dialogue with the film.
Sun 19.11.
Family Concert
14.30
KKL Luzern, Rehearsal Hall
admission with a kultissimo day pass is CHF 10 | information on how to purchase tickets at kultissimo.ch
a production by the company Frakt’ with the support of Pro Helvetia, Arts Council of Switzerland, the City of Biel, the canton of Bern, the Sociéte des Amis du Théâtre Bienne, and the Basel Sinfonietta
in collaboration with Kultissimo
Sun 19.11.
Film
16.00 stattkino Luzern
CHF 18/15 (with discount) tickets available only through the stattkino starting 4. August: t +41 (0)41 410 30 60 | info@stattkino.ch
Fri 17.11. – Sun 19.11.
Vocal Sculpture
15 minutes before each concert in the foyer of the KKL Lucerne and at the Swiss Museum of Transport Filmtheatre
free admission
Estelle Costanzo Celtic harp
Pascale Güdel actor
“Harpapier”
musical performance featuring music by Estelle Costanzo, Liao Lin-Ni, Florian C. Reithner, Toshio Hosokawa, and Lou Harrison
40 min
for young listeners from 0 to 4 years (accompanied by an adult)
“Gerhard Richter Painting”
a film by Corinna Belz
Germany 2011, 97 min, in German and English (with German subtitles)
Gerhard Richter Painting provides unique insights into the artist’s work.
Ragnheiður Erla Björnsdóttir
Young Voices of Lucerne
Joined by young people from Lucerne, the Icelandic composer, poet, and performer will develop a vocal sculpture to get audiences in the mood for the concerts over the course of a five-day workshop.
