Artists : Simon Steen-Andersen, Anna Thorvaldsdottir, Yarn/Wire & Aarhus Symphony Orchestra
[ concert ]
Time : Thur • 19:30 (2xconcerts)
*18:30 - 19:00 / doors open
*1st concert 30 min piece w/ Aarhus Symphony — 2nd concert 40 min
Location : Musikhuset Aarhus (Symfonisk Sal)
Aarhus Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Joseph Bastian, performs works by the Icelandic composer Anna Thorvaldsdottir, AIŌN, and the Danish composer Simon Steen-Andersen, grosso. The acclaimed American quartet Yarn/Wire appears in the latter.
Info about the concerts
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Time: 19:30 - 20:08
A concerto for a quartet of Hammond organs and percussion that explores the inner mechanics of two large, iconic machines: The Leslie Speaker and the symphony orchestra.
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Having spent the last 10 years working primarily with multimedia, found material, and theatrical formats, Simon Steen-Andersen – who is turning 50 – wanted to focus on some of the sounds and musical ideas that often ended up in the background in service of broader concepts or theatrical elements. The idea of found material or readymades remains the starting point in grosso, but in terms of the musical and physical properties of specific instruments and objects, such as their pitch selection, layout, mechanics, timbre, and resonance. At the centre – almost as a fifth performer in the quartet – stands a Leslie speaker, the legendary double-rotary speaker system associated with the Hammond organ. Not just its signature pulsation and Doppler effect, but also the mechanical sounds of its inner workings are examined and followed as musical motifs. The piece is performed by Aarhus Symphony Orchestra and the New York ensemble Yarn/Wire, which will be performing in Denmark for the first time. The ensemble is a new music quartet dedicated to the promotion of creative, meaningful live musical experiences in the US and abroad. grosso is a co-commission from Donaueschinger Musiktage / SWR Orchestra, IRCAM / Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France and Aarhus Symphony Orchestra.
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Time: 20:30 - 21:10
A symphony-scale orchestral work in three movements – inspired by the abstract metaphor of being able to move freely in time.
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AIŌN is a symphony-scale orchestral work in three movements titled Morphosis, Transcension and Entropia. AIŌN is inspired by the abstract metaphor of being able to move freely in time, of being able to explore time as a space that you inhabit rather than experiencing it as a one-directional journey through a single dimension. Disorienting at first, you realize that time extends in all directions simultaneously and that whenever you feel like it, you can access any moment, even simultaneously.
As you learn to control the journey, you find that the experience becomes different by taking different perspectives – you can see every moment at once, focus on just some of them, or go there to experience them. You are constantly zooming in and out, both in dimension and perspective. Some moments you want to visit more than others, noticing as you revisit the same moment, how your perception of it changes. This metaphor is connected to a number of broader background ideas in relation to the work: How we relate to our lives, to the ecosystem, and to our place in the broader scheme of things, and how at any given moment we are connected both to the past and to the future, not just of our own lives but across – and beyond – generations.
As with Thorvaldsdottir’s music generally, the inspiration behind AIŌN is not something she is trying to describe through the music or what the music is “about”, as such – it is a way to intuitively approach and work with the core energy, structure, atmosphere and material of the piece.
AIŌN was commisioned by the Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra and co-commissioned by the Iceland Symphony Orchestra. The piece premiered at the Point Music Festival with the Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra.
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(photo by Lars Svankjær)
Simon Steen-Andersen (1976) is a Danish, Berlin-based composer and stage director working at the intersection of music, performance, theatre, choreography, and film. Renowned for his transdisciplinary approach, Steen-Andersen’s works are performed regularly at major festivals and venues by leading ensembles, orchestras, and soloists. He studied composition with Karl Aage Rasmussen, Mathias Spahlinger, Gabriel Valverde, Bent Sørensen and Hans Abrahamsen in Aarhus, Freiburg, Buenos Aires, and Copenhagen from 1998 to 2006. Since 2018, Steen-Andersen has taught composition and music theatre at the University of the Arts Bern, Switzerland. Steen-Andersen has received the following prizes and awards: Reumert Award (2024), Carl Prize (2024, 2020, 2015), SWR Orchestra Prize (2019, 2014), Mauricio Kagel Music Prize (2017), Siemens Composer’s Prize (2017), Nordic Council Music Prize (2014), Carl Nielsen Honorary Award (2013), Kunstpreis from the Berlin, Academy of the Arts (2013), 1st Prize, International Rostrum of Composers (2010), DAAD Berlin Artist Residency (2010), Kranichsteiner Music Award (2008), Holmboe Prize (2000). Scored works are published by Edition-S / Copenhagen.
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(photo by Anna Maggý)
Anna Thorvaldsdottir’s (1977) “seemingly boundless textural imagination” (NY Times) and striking sound world has made her “one of the most distinctive voices in contemporary music” (NPR). The icelandic composer’s music is composed as much by sounds and nuances as by harmonies and lyricism – written as an ecosystem of sounds, where materials continuously grow in and out of each other so that the familiar can become abstract and the abstract feel familiar. Anna’s “detailed and powerful” (The Guardian) orchestral writing has garnered her awards from the New York Philharmonic, Lincoln Center, the Nordic Council, and the UK’s Ivors Academy, as well as commissions by several of the world’s top orchestras. Thorvaldsdottir’s music is widely performed internationally and has been commissioned by many of the world’s leading orchestras, ensembles, and arts organizations. She is currently based in the London area. She regularly teaches and gives presentations on composition, in academic settings, as part of residencies, and in private lessons. Invited lectures and presentations include Stanford, Columbia, Cornell, NYU, Northwestern, University of Chicago, Sibelius Academy, and the Royal Academy of Music in London. Composer-in-Residence with the Iceland Symphony Orchestra 2018-2023, Anna was in 2023 also in residence at the Aldeburgh Festival and the Tanglewood Festival of Contemporary Music. In 2024-2025, she is the Tonhalle Orchestra’s Creative Chair. She holds a PhD (2011) from the University of California in San Diego.
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Yarn/Wire is a New York City-based percussion and piano quartet consisting of Russell Greenberg and Dustin Donahue on percussion and Laura Barger and Julia Den Boer on pianos. Together, they create visceral, adventurous new music at the intersection of concert tradition and sonic experimentation. Since forming in 2005, the ensemble has become a fixture at the world’s preeminent concert halls and music festivals, performing at venues and events including Lincoln Center, the Library of Congress, Big Ears Festival, Donaueschinger Musiktage, Rainy Days, Wien Moderne, and Time Spans. Through more than two hundred commissions, Yarn/Wire has championed composers including Annea Lockwood, Enno Poppe, Michael Gordon, George Lewis, Sufjan Stevens, Sarah Hennies, Tyshawn Sorey, Peter Evans, Alex Mincek, Craig Taborn, Tyondai Braxton, and Kate Soper, among many others. The ensemble’s ongoing commissioning series, Yarn/Wire Currents, serves as a launchpad for bold new works in partnership with Brooklyn-based institutions including Roulette, Blank Forms, and ISSUE Project Room. Since 2014, Yarn/Wire has also hosted the annual Yarn/Wire International Institute and Festival, bringing together emerging composers and performers from around the world to explore new possibilities in contemporary music. A strong advocate for education, the ensemble has presented workshops, masterclasses, and residencies at institutions worldwide including Harvard, Princeton, UC Berkeley, Columbia in the US, and Bern Academy of the Arts in Switzerland.