Angus Lee is a flautist, composer and conductor. He studied at the Hong Kong Academy of Performing Arts and the Royal Academy of Music in London. His early works comprise a series of reflections on the theme of virtuosity and physicality, while in his later works he turns to the exploration the elements that shape our temporal experience of music. The work
hic / nunc forms part of the series
Lapsus memoriae, which delves into the complex relationship between time and space, using the concept of the palimpsest as a symbol of the overlapping of past and present moments. Music in this context raises the question of the possibility of the real “here and now”, especially in today’s globalised society. In such a world, the capitalist “24/7” time replaces biological rhythms, equalizing day and night. Work from home, technology, gadgets and tracking apps simultaneously colonise and invade human spaces. Bizarrely, it might be sleep that functions as the ultimate refuge of resistance, an uncompromising disruption of the capitalist theft of time, a place where the integrity of the ‘here and now’ remains uncompromised by capital: thus the reply to Ariadne’s question from Christopher Nolan’s
Inception “why is it so important to dream?” In dreams, time and space abide by laws of the sur-real — that is, over-(the)-real — an alternate reality that surpasses, passes over, circumvents, the real: impossible Reutersvärdian spaces crossfolding into and out of one another, while time plastically dilates and stretches towards the infinite: a ‘here’ and ‘now’ where hauntings and visitations coincide as one, when fictive events return with full emotive force as ersatz déjà-vu, and all that is solid melts into air…
Sonja Mutić is a Serbian-Croatian composer, sound artist, and PhD candidate at Harvard University. Her work explores the boundaries of silence, harmony, and noise, using minimal means to envision textures of maximum expressiveness. She studied at the Faculty of Music in Belgrade, the University of Music in Graz, and Harvard, where she collaborates with Chaya Czernowin and Hans Tutschku. In the piece
spektrum. spektra, Sonja explores the layering of sound through the expansion of a single tone into harmonic, textural, and spectral colours. Harmony unfolds in distorted sonic spaces influenced by rock and metal genres, while the voice – real and imaginary – contrasts with the instrumental sound, embodying human presence and transcendence. By means of spatial and perceptual transformations, the music blurs the boundaries between the listener and the outside world, evoking a sense of deep immersion in sound, which opens up the path to altered mental and emotional states. The title reflects the fluctuating perspectives of listening, while the phonetic and auditive structure transmits a rhythmic intensity and ritualistic quality, emphasising the transformative power of sound.
spektra is the feminine form of spectrum, a neologism that invites a more abstract and personal interpretation, situated in the liminal space between the English language and the Serbo-Croatian orthography, between technical precision and poetic ambiguity, between scientific structure and artistic intuition. Sonja dedicated the work to her father, who passed away in 2023.
Camilo Mendez is a Colombian composer focused on acoustic concert music whose works are conceived as cycles, series of works that share the same music ideas but are written for different combinations of instruments. He received his PhD in composition from Royal College of Music London and studied with Rebecca Saunders and Pierluigi Billone. He is currently an associate professor at the Academy of Music of the Hong Kong Baptist University. The cycle
Disappeared Quipu[s] is the result of the project
Post-Colonial Recherche, a collaboration with the Ensemble Recherche curated by Bongani Ndodana-Breen. The work is inspired by the installation
Disappeared Quipu created by Chilean artist and poet Cecilia Vicuña, which explores the history of the
quipu – complex objects that ancient Andean communities used to transmit and store information through knotted cords. These objects served not only to record events and preserve traditions, but also to imagine the future, although they were forbidden during the colonial era. In her installation, Vicuña hung massive strands of knotted wool from the ceiling, evoking the ancient function of the
quipu. Accordingly, Camilo modifies the instruments in his composition using found objects. Each musician thus performs their own
quipu, which connects with the other members of the ensemble, forming a collective
Quipu.
Pilar Miralles is a Spanish composer and researcher. She is currently a doctoral candidate at the DocMus Doctoral School at the Sibelius Academy in Helsinki. Her works explore the themes of time, leisure and disregard in a social context, specifically the ideas of being constantly available and productive. In response to this, Pilar uses rural nostalgia as a creative starting point, reconceptualising the idea of the insignificance of things that have become obsolete. Writing about
done for the day, she says: “I failed to compose what the market would call
a piece, and still the
piece made it into the market”.
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Vertixe Sonora Ensemble is a chamber ensemble connecting musicians from Galicia and Portugal. Together they create an open space for exchange, reflection and conversation about contemporary music. The members of the ensemble – sound and visual artists, jazz and classical musicians – are united by the desire to investigate new ideas through creative collaborations in a broader artistic context.
Hong Kong New Music Ensemble (HKNME) is one of the leading contemporary music ensembles in Asia, known for dynamic performances and innovative projects. Apart from concert halls, it also participates in educational programs, interdisciplinary collaborations, and research projects in cooperation with artists across the globe.
Vid Veljak started playing the cello at the age of 3, enrolled in the Academy of Music at 14, and at 23 became the leading cellist of the Dubrovnik Symphony Orchestra. He is a co-founder of the NAE Collective and a member of the Synchronos Ensemble. He launched the project Resonance(s), devoted to recording works by Croatian composers for solo cello (and electronics), with the aim of promoting the music of the 20th and 21st centuries and encouraging new compositions. The project received a Porin, the Croatian music award, in 2022. He currently teaches at the Arts Academy in Split.
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Hong Kong New Music Ensemble:
Angus Lee, conductor, flute
Linus Fung, clarinet
William Lane, viola
Karen Yu, percussion
Chiu Tan-ching, guzheng
Vertixe Sonora:
Pablo Coello, saxophone
David Durán, piano
Nuno Marques, electric guitar
Roberto Alonso Trillo, violin
Vid Veljak, cello
Angus Lee: hic / nunc *, for chamber ensemble and fixed media
Sonja Mutić: spektrum . spektra **, for amplified ensemble, multi-channel electronics and imaginary voices
/// pre-recorded sounds: Camilo Hirschhorn Bass Clarinet, Sonja Mutić voice, Julio Zúñiga electric and bass guitar
Camilo Mendez: Disappeared Quipu[s]: Broken & Forgotten***, for chamber ensemble
Pilar Miralles: done for the day***, for chamber ensemble
* premiere – commissioned by the 33rd MBZ and Hong Kong New Music Limited, with sponsorship from CASH Music Fund
**premiere – commissioned by the 33rd MBZ and DAAD Artists-in-Berlin Program
***premiere – commissioned by the 33rd MBZ
supported by Cultural Exchange Grant (Hong Kong Arts Development Council)*, Acción Cultural Española (PICE), and DAAD Artists-in-Berlin Program
*Hong Kong Arts Development Council supports freedom of artistic expression. The views and opinions expressed in this project do not represent the stand of the Council.
