Klangforum Wien

The performance of the Klangforum Wien ensemble, this time conducted by Johannes Kalitzke, combines three exceptional composing personalities: Chaya Czernowin, Mirela Ivičević and Sara Glojnarić. These composers of the works that are on the program composed precisely for the Klangforum Wien ensemble, and in them, as in their other compositions, they deal with various extra-musical themes. Chaya Czernowin, for example, is characterized by engagement in the context of existential world issues and a tendency to study sound and tactile textures beyond, as she herself will say, rationality and convention. Mirela Ivičević, on the other hand, in her already performed composition deals with the horrors of fascism and suffering in Bosnia and Herzegovina during the 1940s, and versatile Sara Glojnarić in the composition Pure Bliss tries to musically shape the pleasure that brings bliss.

All three compositions delve into the human psyche and push the boundaries of the traditional aesthetics of music. In other words, they call for the change of traditional codes by recognizing the most diverse experiences, such as the experience of the beyond and the unknowable (Czernowin), pain and discomfort (Ivičević), but also great pleasure (Glojnarić), as equally important. Intimate experiences and insights manifest themselves in different ways: Ivičević in her composition refers to her grandfather's suffering in the aforementioned war context, while Glojnarić intertwines the experiences of the Klangforum Wien ensemble with her own, comprehensive musical experience. In doing so, she plays with the life cycle of the composition and personalizes it in relation to the ensemble. Namely, for each performance under the baton of a new, guest conductor in accordance with his musical affinities, she creates a new variant of the tape segment within the score. 

The ZKM space will certainly be a challenging place for the intertwining of electronics and live ensemble performance, both in the case of two Croatian composers and in the case of the premiere of Chaya Czernowin, co-produced by the Wien Modern and the Warsaw Autumn festival together with the 32^nd MBZ-HDS. The soloist at this concert will be Uli Fussenegger, double bass player and composer, member of the Klangforum Wien ensemble. It is also important to mention that the compositions of Mirela Ivičević and Sara Glojnarić were created in the context of the Erste Bank Kompositionspreis Award, which is awarded to outstanding composers for their authorial work. Both composers are the winners of this award, and Sara Glojnarić is the youngest winner of this award and the first winner who is not a citizen of Austria. Sara is also the laureate of the 2023 Ernst von Siemens Foundation Award for Young Composers, two years after mirela Ivičević received the same award.

Chaya Czernowin, whose composition style they describe as sensual and fearless, and even as equivalent to Picasso's Guernica, is an Israeli-American composer of chamber and orchestral music with and without electronics. She is the recipient of the most prestigious music awards, and her works have been performed by the largest contemporary music ensembles in the world. 

Before the performance, a talk will be held in the foyer of the Zagreb Youth Theatre, featuring guest composers Chaya Czernowin, Mirela Ivičević and Sara Glojnarić and Peter Paul Kainrath, artistic director and executive director of the Klangforum Wien ensemble. The talk will be moderated by composer Margareta Ferek Petrić. The aforementioned composer and artistic director of the 32^nd Music Biennale Zagreb will also host the program A Musical Portrait: Members of the Klangforum Wien Ensamble, which will be held at the Močvara Club, and its goal is to present the members of this ensemble to the audience in an intimate setting.