Virus #1
Virus #2

Virus #3.0
Composition for live generated electronic resonating body
strings, woodwind and brass instruments, percussion sets

Sound engineer: Peter Venus
Commissioned by RSO Vienna

The live generated electronic resonating body is the host to which the sounds of the instruments attach and adapt, they penetrate into it and use it for their replication. At first the body is immune, but during the course of the piece the body stops resisting, takes in the sounds of the string instruments, and allows the viruses to multiply freely. It is a struggle and synthesis between two resonating bodies. Together they stay alive.

The Virus #* series was inspired by one of those rare moments of happiness. I had just heard Terretektorh by Iannis Xenakis performed by the RSO at the Wien Modern Festival 2009 and came away absolutely high! And yet I felt there was something missing – electronic sounds and the way they move through the room in a somehow different way. I was buzzing with questions, ideas for experiments. I think in terms of bodies, my field is electronics. So I wondered HOW can I communicate with a resonating body such as an orchestra? I opted for the language most familiar to me – live generated electronics – listening. Not sugar sprinkles or mere effects, ¬absoluteness – the score.

This image of a virus has emerged from inside of me.

I approached this challenge slowly. Virus #1 involves individual groups of instruments, Virus #2 a combination of two groups of instruments, Virus #3 a synthesis of all groups of instruments I have worked with thus far.

23 instruments, 15 voices, 75 oscillators, 75 meters. 24 pairs of ears open themselves to a feedback loop. I – the electronics – the host – the recursive control unit – a complex machine.

Both bodies are audible. The virus series is an expedition into acoustic perception, a sounding of the responses of our brains in the span of milliseconds, a plea for the precise acoustic moment.
And what do you hear?

03 10 2013 Musikprotokoll | Dom im Berg, Graz

Virus #3.1 for recorder, bassoon, violocello, violin and percussion set
Comissioned piece by ORF and Jeunesse
with Dafne Vicente-Sandoval (bassoon), Maria Grün (cello), Andrii Pavlov (violin), Caroline Mayrhofer (recorder), Igor Gross (percussion)

31 03 2016 ORF RadioKulturhaus, Wien

Virus #3.2 Low Air for Paetzold flute, bassoon, tuba, horn and accordion
Commissioned piece by Klangspuren Schwaz
with TENM Tiroler Ensemble für Neue Musik (Caroline Mayrhofer / Paetzold flute, Erhard Ploner / bassoon, Christoph Gapp / horn, Karlheinz Siessl / tuba, Harald Pröckl / accordion)

17 09 2017 Klangspuren Festival PILGERSTATION VI – ABSCHLUSSKONZERT | Pfarrkirche Hl. Petrus und Paulus, Bruckhäusl

Virus #3.3 for contra forte, contrabass clarinet, flute, harp, violoncello, violin and celesta
Commissioned by Klangforum Wien

11 11 2018 Wien Modern | Semperdepot, Wien

Virus #3.4 verstimmt nach oben for tuba, bariton saxophone, requinto, violoncello, viola'd amore and violin
Commissioned by Liminar Ensemble

06 11 2019 Ex Teresa, Mexico City

Virus #3.5 Schatten for double bass, bass clarinet and piano
Comissioned by On the Fragility of Sounds for the ensemble Schallfeld

supported by bm:ukk, bundeskanzleramt:kunst, Austrian Culturalforum Mexiko City

translated by Kimi Lum

credits

Andrii Pavlov

The violinist Andrii Pavlov is a representative the young generation of Ukrainian musicians and a prize-winner of several competitions, among them Stasys Vainiunas International Chamber Music Competition in Vilnius, Lithuania, and Johannes Brahms International Competition in Poertschach, Austria. He has performed in Ukraine, Netherlands, Spain, Poland, Azerbaijan, Algeria, Iran and Syria. He has improved his professional skills in masterclasses with renowned musicians like Philip Setzer, Krzysztof Smietana, Marc Danel, Andrej Bielow and Alexander Pavlovsky.

Caroline Mayrhofer

Wien/Innsbruck/Brixen. Musician, studied recorder and cello at Linz, Vienna, Amsterdam. Solo concert performer and member of ensembles for early and new music in Europe, America, Asia. Participation in CD- and broadcust recordings (EMI digital, RecRec, RAI). Activities in improvisation, folk music, Arabian and Sefardian music. | homepage

Dafne Vicente-Sandoval

is a bassoon player, who explores sound through improvisation, contemporary music performance and sound installations. Her instrumental approach is centered on the fragility of sound and its emergence within a given space, exploring the threshold between instability and control. Dafne currently lives in Paris. She favours long term collaborations within which her work keeps an integrity while holding a dialogue with that of others (current collaborations with Jakob Ullmann, Éliane Radigue, Klaus Lang, Phill Niblock, Michael Pisaro).

Igor gross

Percussion studies in Vienna. Actic in contemporary music among others with Klangforum Wien, PHACE Contemporary Music, Ensemble 20. Jahrhundert, Ensemble Phidias, Ensemble Platypus. Soloconcerts and busy with imroversation. Continous projects with orchesteras like the Wiener Philharmoniker, RSO Wien, Staatsoper Wien und others.

Klangforum Wien

24 musicians from ten different countries represent an artistic idea and a personal approach that aims to restore to their art something that seems to have been lost – gradually, almost inadvertently – during the course of the 20th century, which gives their music a place in the present and in the midst of the community for which it was written and for whom it is crying out to be heard. | homepage

Liminar

is a modular ensemble of up to 25 musicians covering a wide range of instruments and traditions, has been one of the driving forces behind the creative explosion currently taking place in the Mexican music scene. Liminar stands for adventurous programming, often on the limits of the normal concert form. | homepage

Maria Grün

The cellist Maria Grün first started taking cello lessons when she was six and was accepted to the gifted class at the University of Music and Performing Arts in Graz at the age of seven. From 2008 to 2014 she was principal in the Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra; since 2014 she has been a member of the cello section of the Vienna Symphony Orchestra. From the fall of 2007 on she has taught the gifted class for violoncello at the Johann Sebastian Bach Musikschule and has been employed as an assistant at the University of Music and Performing Arts in Vienna since October 2012.

RSO

The ORF Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra is a renowned, world-class orchestra that is closely connected to the Viennese tradition of orchestral performance. | homepage

schallfeld

The ensemble was founded in 2013 by alumni of Klangforum Wien and composition students of Kunstuniversität Graz. It currently consists of musicians from 8 nationalities and reflects the diversity and different interests of its members in its artistic direction. | homepage

TENM

TENM is the Tirolean Ensemble for New Music founded 1984 by Günther Zechberger and now directed by Harald Pröckl. | homepage