Twinnings
World Premieres by Kranichstein Music Prize winner Kari Watson and by Kelley Sheehan, played by Sarah Saviet & Maya Bennardo (violin) and Jennifer Torrence (percussion)
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Fri 25 July 2025, 19.30
Lichtenbergschule (Turnhalle)
Kari Watson: twinning für zwei Violinen und LED-Lichter (2025)
Kari Watson: For Jen Torrence für Percussion, Elektronik und Video (2024/25)
Kelley Sheehan: Neues Werk für Percussion solo / New Work for Percussion solo (2025)
Uraufführung / World Premiere
Sarah Saviet (Violine / Violin)
Maya Bennardo (Violine / Violin)
Jennifer Torrence (Percussion)
Kari Watson (Electronic Devices)
Luana Borges (Video)
Born 1998 in the USA and based in Chicago, Kari Watson‘s artistic practice has many different facets. They write instrumental concert pieces, electroacoustic music, create live performances and interactive installations. It was not least this versatility and complexity that was honored with the Kranichstein Music Prize for Composition in 2023. The prize is traditionally accompanied by a single composition commission but Kari Watson wrote two new pieces for the Darmstadt Summer Course 2025, both in very close collaboration with the performers. Percussionist Jennifer Torrence and violinist Sarah Saviet are both tutors at this year’s Summer Course and will be joined on stage for Watson’s new violin duo twinning by Maya Bennardo, who performed in Darmstadt in 2023 as a member of the Mivos Quartet. Both world premieres are not purely instrumental pieces but are enhanced by light elements (twinning) and a new video by filmmaker Luana Borges (For Jen Torrence).
The US composer Kelley Sheehan also moves virtuosically between instrumental, electro-acoustic, multi-media works, and performance. She is the composer of the third world premiere of the evening: a ten-minute solo piece for Jennifer Torrence.