8 November 2024, 19:00
tvvo:id at Klangwerkstatt Berlin
Kunstquartier Bethanien, Studio 1
Mariannenpl. 2, 10997 Berlin
About
On 8 November 2024, Kyiv Contemporary Music Days presents tvvo:id, a project in the frame of the Klangwerkstatt Berlin Festival for New Music. The program introduces specially commissioned works by Ukrainian composers performed virtually from Kyiv by Nazarii Stets (double bass) and live in Berlin by Theo Nabicht (clarinet, bass clarinet and contrabass clarinet) at Kunstquartier Bethanien.
A soloist on stage in a duet with an invisible counterpart. The musicians are separated by place, time, and war. One plays live in Berlin, the other is present as a recording made a few weeks earlier in Kyiv. With the incomplete duo, the Ukrainian concert sends a “signal” from war-ravaged Kyiv to peaceful Berlin. The Ukrainian musician does not know whether the dialog with his counterpart in Berlin will succeed. In Berlin, it turns out as a dialog that the other side can't hear.
The musical experience of the evening will suggest a complex entanglement of pieces from composers Anna Arkushyna (WP), Albert Saprykin (WP), and Ihor Zavhorodnii (WP) in their attempt of the personal and collective research on the topic of fragile connections and uncertainty in dialog during the war and beyond.
The project is realized in partnership with Klangwerkstatt Berlin Festival for New Music and Goethe-Institut Ukraine.
About the works
Anna Arkushyna
Delivered
for contrabass clarinet in B and double bass (tape)
«Delivered. explores the emotional tension and uncertainty that arises when a message shows the status «delivered,» but remains “unread”. In times of war, when many people are separated by distance, these simple messenger notifications take on profound meaning: if the message is read, it means the person is alive. However, when the second checkmark doesn't appear, the sender is left in a state of limbo, trapped in an anxious wait. Many people remain in this state during indefinite period of time, as their loved ones go missing, are taken captive, or perish — with the only visible sign being the single word «Delivered.»
This piece captures the experience of waiting, the weight of uncertainty, and the emotional strain that has become an inherent part of everyday life for many.»
Ihor Zavhorodnii
я тут, з тобою (I'm here, with you)
for double bass (tape), contrabass clarinet and metronome (audio)
«This music is about love during wartime. A love that has begun to get accustomed to its existence without a future. Therefore, every tiny pulsation of this life is the pulsation of this love only.»
Albert Saprykin
;
for double bass (tape), contrabass clarinet and screen
«what is it to be the depths of an abyss that has received the signal, knowing the sender? knowing the sender will never know? no? oh.»
The work comprises three parts: i, ii, and iii.
The third part of the piece includes recordings of Kyiv’s city sounds captured between October 8 and November 8, 2024, kindly provided by Yevhen Dubovyk.
CONCERT PROGRAM
; i
я тут, з тобою (I'm here, with you)
; ii
Delivered.
; iii
The works are commissioned by Kyiv Contemporary Music Days and Klangwerkstatt Berlin, and all performances receive their world premieres.
Performers
Theo Nabicht
Theo was born in 1963. He studied at the Berlin Academy of Music Hanns Eisler from 1983 to 1987. From 1995 to 1997 he specialized and studied bass clarinet (master class) at the Conservatoire de Strasbourg with Armand Angster.
Since 1985 he has worked across genres, at first mainly as a jazz musician, later he was mainly involved in the performance of contemporary and improvised music. Theo Nabicht can be heard on various recordings and CDs.
He is a long-standing member of the Ensemble KNM Berlin, was a guest with the Klangforum Wien and the Ensemble Modern. He has worked as a composer for theater, dance, and television productions.
Since 2007, Theo Nabicht has been playing the Selmer double bass clarinet by Wolfgang Stryi with the kind support of a patron who wishes to remain unnamed.
In recent years, the double bass clarinet has been at the center of Theo’s work. In the course of the last 10 years since the beginning of the project, more than 80 new compositions for the double bass clarinet (+ other instruments) have been written. In various formations as well as soloistically, he seeks to expand the sound spectrum of the instrument.
Nazarii Stets
Nazarii Stets is a double bassist focused on contemporary music and promoting the modern music of Ukraine. He was born in 1991 in Kopychyntsi, Ukraine into a musician family. His first instrument was violin and after seven years of learning it, he began studying double bass at the Ternopil Music College under the tutelage of Vasyl Felenchak. Then from 2010–2015, he achieved both bachelor's and master’s degrees from the National Music Academy of Ukraine while working with Oleksandr Melnyk from the National Opera of Ukraine.
Nazarii got his first professional contract with the Municipal Galician Chamber Orchestra at the age of 16, and at 20 he received the soloist position in the National Ensemble of Soloists Kyiv Camerata. He became a professor at the National Music Academy of Ukraine at the age of 26.
Nazarii Stets got master classes with Nicolas Crosse, Chi-Chi Nwanokue, Jeff Bradetich, Leon Bosch, Ruslan Lutsyk, Dan Styffe, and Hiroshi Ikematsu. He was the first performer of double-bass concertos by Zoltan Almashi, Renata Sokachyk, Oleksandr Gonobolin, Alisa Zaika, Meryson Borghes, Oleksandr Levkovych, Julia Monducci, Edvard Kravchuk, and Serhiy Pilyutikov. His concert geography includes more than 25 countries with solo, chamber, and orchestral performances at festivals like ManiFeste (IRCAM, Paris), Lucerne Festival, Edinburgh International Festival, BBC Proms, Istanbul Music Festival, Gogolfest (Kyiv), Two Days and Two Nights of New Music (Odesa), Britten Pears Young Artist Programme (Suffolk), Contrasts (Lviv), Course (Lviv), Warsaw Autumn, Septembre musical (Montreux-Vevey), and so on. He has collaborated with Ulysses Ensemble, Salzburg Sinfonietta, Ensemble Nostri Temporis, Sed Contra Ensemble, New Era Orchestra, National Ensemble of Soloists Kyiv Camerata, Ukho Ensemble, and others.
Project PArtners
PROJECT TEAM
Daria Vdovina, Iryna Biloborodova, Kateryna Alymova, Albert Saprykin, Mykhailo Chedryk, Polina Horodyska, Khrystyna Melnyk, Vasyl Lutsyk, Tetiana Melnychenko, Mariia Tytova, Les Vynogradov, Serhii Anishchenko, Taras Tarasov, Oleksandr Shatskyi, Maksym Hladetskyi, Maksym Miklin.