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World Premieres of Chaya Czernowin's Poetica and Moths of Hunger and Awe

Apr. 12, 2024

On April 12, percussionist Steven Schick and Les Percussions de Strasbourg perform the world premiere of Chaya Czernowin's Poetica at the Festspielhaus Hellerau, Großer Saal in Dresden. Poetica is a journey of the individual to himself, which is brought to life through breathing. Czernowin notes:

“This journey starts from different places and memories: I created countless sound recordings of the demonstrations in Tel Aviv, in the USA and in Paris during 2023. We all live in a complex reality that seems inescapable these days. However, the sonic journey focuses on the emergence of breath and thus also on the discovery of what the percussion hides in the midst of its sound. The string tremolo appears as a shadow of the percussion tremolo. These two types of tremolos push and pull in their common identity, allowing us to experience them as a unified imaginary field. Despite the difficult and intrusive reality, one can turn inward and find clarity and hope. Our interiority is a kind of nature with its own vitality.”

The sounds of the string instruments were pre-produced at the IRCAM Paris studio for electronic music in the run-up to this project. The 53-minute work Poetica marks the beginning of a collaboration between Hellerau - European Centre for the Arts and the IRCAM-Centre Pompidou and is part of a concert series for innovative and immersive concert formats and 3D audio developments. Poetica is also the first part of Czernowin's three-part series of works "Vena". The associated pieces Immaterial (Vena II) and Unhistoric Acts (Vena III) were premiered in 2021 and 2022. 

Additionally, Chaya Czernowin's Moths of Hunger and Awe for violin and string orchestra will be premiered on April 18 by Ilya Gringolts and the Munich Chamber Orchestra, led by Bas Wiegers. The composer notes: 

"[Moths of Hunger and Awe] stages the soloist as an isolated entity on the face of an unforgiving and immense extended surface of the orchestra. The soloist and the orchestra are both limited by the bounds of their characters when trying to relate to each other. The piece enacts a process of these very disparate forces finding a parallel route as they both, each in their own way, try to overcome their initial confines."

Matthias Pintscher will lead the Musikkollegium Winterthur in the Swiss premiere of Moths of Hunger and Awe next month.

Finally, a new production of Czernowin’s second opera Zaïde / Adama will be presented at the Theater Aachen, conducted by Chanmin Chung and Mathis Groß and directed by Ran Chai Bar-zvi. The piece was premiered in 2006 at the Salzburg Festival and later, a new version with choir was created.

Adama (Hebrew for earth) is Czernowin’s reaction to Mozart’s Zaïde, functioning as an independent musical sound space that regards the subject of Mozart’s opera from a contemporary perspective. Zaïde describes the conflict between the Orient and Occident civilizations through the lens of a European couple who are in love and are held captive in an alien Oriental country; in Adama, the situation as described by Czernowin is intensified, touching on the question of freedom and imprisonment from a different dimension. The lovers themselves speak two languages and encounter each other as foreigners, as a man from Palestine and woman from Israel. 


Trailer from Theater Freiburg's 2017 production of Zaïde / Adama

To learn more about Chaya Czernowin, visit schott-music.com.

Chaya Czernowin
Poetica (2023)
(Vena I)
for percussion solo, percussion ensemble, prerecorded strings and IRCAM electronics
53'

Moths of Hunger and Awe (2023-2024)
for violin solo and string orchestra
Str(10.0.5.4.2)
40'

Zaïde / Adama (2004-2005, rev. 2016)
new version with choir by Chaya Czernowin and Ludger Engels
Zaïde instrumentation: 2.2.0.2-2.2.0.0-pno-str
Adama instrumentation: 1(pic.bfl).0.2(ecl.bcl).0-0.0.1(btbn).0-2perc-str(1.0.1.2.2)
130’

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