Orchestral Sessions Phase 2 - Works by Scelsi, Xenakis, Takemitsu, Caspi

A full string orchestra and seventeen gongs converge in Halle am Berghain for the second edition of Orchestral Sessions. This program brings together the meditative intensity of Giacinto Scelsi, the Tectonic structures of Iannis Xenakis, and the quiet luminosity of Tōru Takemitsu’s Requiem, alongside a new work by Berlin based conductor and composer Avi Caspi. Performed in total darkness, within the stripped geometry of Halle am Berghain the evening emphasizes sound as physical presence; immersive, immediate, and unadorned. where orchestral music is infused with the spatial and emotional logic of the club. Space itself becomes an acoustic organism, shaping and shaped by the music, inviting the audience to relinquish passive listening and enter a dynamic field where sound and space converge, destabilizing the boundaries between sensation and structure, presence and perception.

Scelsi’s symphonic sorcery moves through microtonal vibration and trance inducing resonance. His string works are archetypal examples of his mature music which treats sound as a living, breathing entity; less composed than conjured.

Xenakis, by contrast, channels architecture and mathematics into vast sonic forms governed by stochastic processes and physical force . He sculpts a sonic monolith using only the raw force of strings. The piece unfolds as a series of shifting masses. A fabric of sound through which something unknowable pulses.

Between them, Takemitsu’s Requiem offers a space of study in restraint, silence, and sustained intensity. Meditative work that merges Western modernism with Japanese aesthetics; especially “Mono no aware”, the poignant awareness of life’s transience.

Caspi’s compositions for handmade gongs, blurring the line between percussion and atmosphere, provokes seismic structures from within the body of the orchestra itself. voices on the edge of articulation.

Program:

Tōru Takemitsu: Requiem
Iannis Xenakis: Voile
Giacinto Scelsi: Ohoi - "Les Principes créatifs”, Anāgāmin
Avi Caspi: Gong Concerto, Séance
Orchestra Members:

Annette Jakovcic, Anna Faber, Caleb Salgado, Colin Tobelem, David Navarro Ruiz, Elspieta, Frances Patterson, Franzi Aller, Gregoire Simon, Ira Hadžić, Isabelle Klemt, Isabella Stephanie Hauck, James Banner, Johanna Tüscher, Julia Sandros Alper, Malin Grass, Mari Sawada, Marie Grosjean, Martin Balance, Meike-Lu Schneider, Megan Jowett, Miguel Erlich, Nikolai Stepanov, Paloma Ángulo, Rocío Marie Maldonado Díaz, Sophie Notte, Storm Willow Hartley, Susanne Knast, Tadashi Forck, Yodfat Miron.  

Two additional new works written especially for the concert - one for solo gong and orchestra and the other for a gong ensemble and orchestra.