On July 18th and 20th, 2019, the Zafraan Ensemble will start the first part of its series “Rencontres” together with the Ensemble L'Itineraire in two joint concerts in Berlin and Stuttgart. The focus is on the German premiere of the concert installation “Germination” by Jean-Luc Hervé.
In 2019, for its tenth anniversary, the Zafraan Ensemble is seeking encounters and exchanges with three established ensembles for contemporary music, the ensembles L’Itinéraire and Court-circuit from Paris and the Kammerensemble Neue Musik Berlin. In July 2019, it opens the series entitled “Rencontres” together with the Ensemble L’Itineraire in joint concerts at the Musikbrauerei Berlin and at the Summer Festival in Stuttgart.
At the center of Zafraan’s meeting with L’Itinéraire is the German premiere of Jean-Luc Hervé’s concert installation Germination (German: Germination), which is a musical performance that combines a piece for large ensemble and live electronics with a sound installation. The work, created at IRCAM in 2013, is based on plant growth, the germination process of seeds in the soil through to their becoming visible as plants on the surface. The entire music brewery in Berlin is played – from the concert hall through the enchanted cellar corridors to the wild garden. The musical convergence of Zafraan and L’Itinéraire also takes place in En découverte (2003) by Jean-Luc Hervé and in Hart auf hart (1986) by Gerhard Stäbler, who is celebrating his 70th birthday this year.
The Zafraan Ensemble, founded in 2009 and organized by its members in a grassroots-democratic manner, will meet an ensemble that was explicitly founded by Philippe Hurel in 1991 “par un compositeur pour des compositeurs”. The ensemble L’Itinéraire was also founded in 1973 around the composers Tristan Murail, Hugues Dufourt and Gérard Grisey in order to research and further develop spectral music together with experimental musicians. Since then it has been closely linked to the composer group L’Itineraire and has renewed itself in recent years with new members.
A co-production of the ensembles Zafraan and L’Itinéraire. Supported by the Initiative Neue Musik Berlin, Impuls neue Musik, Spedidam and the Ernst von Siemens Music Foundation.
Ensembles: Zafraan and L’Itinéraire
Conductor: Léo Margue
Live electronics, sound direction: IRCAM (Jérémie Bourgogne, Thomas Goepfer, Damien Ripoll)
Jean-Luc Hervé : Germination (2013, German premiere)
concert installation for ensemble, electronics, loudspeakers and plants
Gerhard Stäbler : Hard on Hard (1986)
Improvisational. Calculating, music for ensembles
Jean-Luc Hervé : En découverte (2003)
for two violins and live electronics
Thursday, July 18, 2019, 8:30 p.m.
(admission from 8:00 p.m., the bar is open)
Musikbrauerei, Greifswalder Straße 23a, 10405 Berlin
Tickets: €10 / €8 reduced
Saturday, July 20, 2019, 7:00 p.m.
Theaterhaus, Siemensstraße 11, 70469 Stuttgart
Tickets: €15 / €9 reduced
