Scenes for Orchestra

Morton Feldman: String Quartet and Orchestra (1973)

Mariam Rezaei & Matthew Shlomowitz: Six scenes for turntables and orchestra (2023, WP / Commissioned by the Darmstadt Summer Course, Ictus, deSingel, Brussels Philharmonic and nyMusikk)

Kaija Saariaho: Orion (2002)

Mariam Rezaei (Turntables)
Fabrik Quartet
hr-Sinfonieorchester
Pierre Bleuse (Musikalische Leitung)

The concerts of the Frankfurt Radio Symphony at the Darmstadt Summer Course are regular highlights – as it will be this year, when the orchestra plays the final concert under the direction of Pierre Bleuse, the new musical director of the Paris-based Ensemble intercontemporain. In Darmstadt, the orchestra is able to realize programs that would be difficult to promote in the rest of the season – this is probably even more true for the Scenes for Turntables and Orchestra, created collaboratively by Mariam Rezaei and Matthew Shlomowitz, than for Morton Feldman’s String Quartet and Orchestra. The solo part in this twenty-minute meditative, flowing sound structure is performed by the young Fabrik Quartet from Frankfurt, whose members are in the final stages of their studies at the Frankfurt University of Music and Performing Arts, but have already won several prizes. The four are also participants of the Darmstadt Summer Course this year. The powerful last piece of the evening is full of contrasts: lamenting memento mori – clear winter sky – frantic chasing. The Finnish composer Kaija Saariaho likes to develop her pieces out of images and metaphors; here the composition revolves around the myth and constellation of Orion. Saariaho wrote the monumental work in 2002 for the Cleveland Orchestra. Even a good twenty years later, Orion has lost none of its magical power – a grandiose finale to the festival program of the Darmstadt Summer Course 2023.

With the friendly support of the Ernst von Siemens Music Foundation