ERÖFFNUNGSKONZERT

Program

• George Lewis: Your Network is Unstable (2024) - 14'
• Jessie Cox: Schattenspiel (2023 EA) - 11'
• Hannah Kendall: He stretches out the north over the void and hangs the earth on nothing (2023 EA) - 11'
• George Lewis: Weathering (2023 EA) - 21'

Cast

• ORF Radio-Symphonieorchester Wien
• Vimbayi Kaziboni: Leitung

For the opening concert of the RSO Vienna, Vimbayi Kaziboni is not only involved as a conductor, but also as a curator: together with the composer, AI pioneer, scientist, trombonist and ensemble director George Lewis, he has shaped the opening programme. Hannah Kendall quotes Job and Mozart, "out of a longing for light in a seemingly all-consuming darkness". Jessie Cox refers to Friedrich Cerha's Spiegeln, as well as to the African-American painter Sam Gilliam. Your Network Is Unstable by George Lewis wants to "promote not only a subliminal psychological discouragement of complacency, but also a celebration of mobility". And even if Weathering - an expression for the chronic burden of poverty and discrimination experienced by marginalised groups - refers to Afro-diasporic experiences of persistent racism, it is about a thoroughly energetic and rousing renewal of histories, subjectivities and identities for music:

«I am hoping that this music will provoke not stress, but empathy, since diverse forms of weathering affect us all.» (George Lewis)

«Weathering continues my fascination with the classic trope of depiction in American music, as found in Amy Beach, Charles Ives, Thomas ‹Blind Tom› Wiggins, Elliott Carter, Duke Ellington, and many others. This new work is part of my series of musical meditations on the sound of decolonization that ask: If we get what we want, what will it sound like?» (George Lewis)

Kuratiert von Vimbayi Kaziboni und George Lewis
Produktion Wien Modern, ORF Radio-Symphonieorchester Wien und Wiener Konzerthaus