TWISTED FOLKSONGS
With the concert ‘Twisted Folksongs’, the ensemble False Relationships and the Extended Endings strives to revitalise and celebrate the cultural heritage of different regions, to present it in a modern and innovative way and to give the audience the opportunity to explore the interface between traditional and contemporary music.
Description:
Folk songs have lost popularity in today’s world as the music industry focuses on commercialisation and technological developments have led to a homogenisation of musical tastes. Our project shows that folk songs can be a rich source for innovative musical creation.
The concert series ‘Twisted Folksongs’ comprises three programmes in Basel, Bern and Freiburg im Breisgau. In addition to works by Luciano Berio, we will also be presenting new compositions by female composers – living in Switzerland – who will be inspired by folk songs.
We would like to draw the attention of the general public to the works of Berio and emphasise the continuing importance of folk music in contemporary classical music. At the same time, we would also like to draw attention to the work of young, talented women today; Abril Padilla, Charlotte Torres, and Anna Sowa, will each accompany the audience into the world of folk/contemporary music with a new composition each concert evening.
Participants:
Twisted Folksongs 1
Ana María Fonseca Núñez (Mezzosoprano)
Sebastian Heimann (viola)
Alice Belugou (harp)
Noah Rosen (percussion)
Phoebe Bognár (flute)
Josep-Oriol Miró Cogul (cello)
Cris Arcos Cano (saxophone)
Christian Rombach (conductor)
Twisted Folksongs 2
Agustin Nazzetta (Guitar/E-Guitar)
Laura Mehmeti (Accordion)
Sebastián Zuleta (audio)
Santiago Villar Martin (video)
Commissioned Composers:
Anna Sowa
https://annasowa.pl
Anna Sowa is an experimental composer and artist working mainly with electronic music and performing arts. She is interested in the intersection of movement, gesture and theatricality in combination with electronic and instrumental music.
Born in 1987 in Limanowa (PL). She graduated from the Bacewicz Academy of Music in Lodz (PL) with a Master’s degree in Eurythmy (2011) and Composition (2016), where she studied with Zygmunt Krauze.
As part of the Erasmus+ programme, she studied composition and visualisation with Dietrich Hahne at the Folkwang University of the Arts in Essen (DE) in 2014-2015. As a scholarship holder of the Chinese government, she was a student at the Shanghai Conservatory of Music (CN) in 2017-2018.
In 2021, she completed the ‘Specialised Master’s in Composition’ with Caspar Johannes Walter and Johannes Kreidler with distinction.
Her works have been performed at: ECLAT (DE), Warsaw Autumn (PL), Sacrum Profanum (PL), AdLibitum (PL), Pergine Festival (IT), Musica Moderna (PL), Musica Privata (PL), Controlled Festival (PL),Touch the Theatre Festival (PL), Fru Improvisation Contact Festival (PL), C.A.R. contemporary art ruhr in Essen (DE), BÉTON Brut & Bruits in Cologne (DE), International Festival of Accordion Music in Przemyśl (PL), Bauhaus/Dessau Kurt Weil Festival (DE), Arkady Kubickiego at the Royal Castle in Warsaw (PL),Sao Paulo Contemporary Composers Festival (BR), Basel Theatre (CH), Experimental Tuesdays Festival (PL).
In 2021 she won the 3rd edition of the Fringe Competition of the Foundatione Haydn Foundation together with the association Anomalia. As part of the prize, Anna Sowa’s opera Silenzio/Silence will be premiered in March 2022 as part of the Opera 2022 festival in Bologna.
She received scholarships: KAAD Bonn (Germany) 2015, Künstlerstadt Kalbe (Germany) 2017,
Full Scholarship of the Chinese Government 2017 – 2018 and Witold Lutosławski Scholarship (2019) – donated by the Lutosławski family and Nicati-de Luze Foundation Scholarship (CH).
She is a member of IAWM (The International Alliance for Women in Music), Young Polish Composer Society, Polish Institute for World Art Studies.
In the years 2011 – 2017 she was a teacher at the Complex of the Music School in Radom (Poland) and a lecturer in piano improvisation at the Faculty of Eurhythmics of the Grażyna and Kiejstut Music Academy in Łódź.
Abril Padilla
abrilpadilla.net
Abril Padilla was born in Buenos Aires. She has lived and worked in in Basel. After studying the transverse flute, she studied electroacoustic composition at the University of Buenos Aires. She continued her composition studies at the CCMIX J. Xenakis, at the University of Pantin in Paris and in courses with K.-H. Stockhausen. Her interest in musical acoustics prompted her to take an additional musicology programme (Master’s degree in musicology and Musical Acoustics at the CNSMPD). In addition to electroacoustic compositions and musical improvisations with everyday objects, she is also involved in artistic projects (e.g. at the recording studio of the Philharmonie de Paris). Abril Padilla is the winner of several international composition competitions (SonOhr Festival, Radio Play Competition of the Spanish Broadcasting Corporation, WDR/Radio Suisse Romande, Festival Archipel Geneva). Together with Sol Bilbao, she was honoured in 2011 for the work Grimja (Basel Theatre) with the Sperber Prize. Her piece Feu de voix was 2012 at the Festival International Musicacoustica in Beijing. Since 2010 she has received composition commissions from the following ensembles: Phoenix, Ensemble Eunoia, ensemble arcimboldo, SCB (sound installation in Blindekuh for the opera project Alcina , Ensemble Contrechamps (2019). In 2015 she developed together with Thilo Hirsch and Charlotte Torres the sound installation resonance-box. In 2017, she created a sound installation with Erik Bullot, Uriel Orlow and Yto Barrada for the MUCEM (Musée Ethnographique de la
Méditerranée) in Marseille.
Charlotte Torres
www.charlottetorres.ch
Grew up in Annecy (F), and lives in Basel (CH). In 2019, she obtained her Master’s degree in composition from the Bern University of the Arts. Her teachers were: Xavier Dayer, Simon Steen Andersen, and before that, Philippe Manoury. Her works have been performed in Switzerland, France, Austria, Belgium and Spain by renowned ensembles such as: Nouvel Ensemble Contemporain (NEC), This Ensemble That, Ensemble Vertigo, Berner Kammer OrchesterBKO, Quatuor Adastra Strasbourg, Ensemble Polygon, Trio Tramontana, Ensemble SoundTrieb. In 2020, her piece, ‘ Dans l’ombre de Franz ’, was selected by the European Composers and Authors Alliance – ECSA to represent Switzerland at the ECCO Brussels 2020 concert. The same year, Charlotte Torres received support from the Ernst von Siemens MusikStiftung, for her composition ‘ Bricoles sonores ’, commissioned by the Ensemble SoundTrieb, Luzern. She is actually one of the 8 composers selected for the project ‘Trabant 2021’ of the Ensemble Phoenix Basel.