Diskreter Wolf is a musical appropriation. The work is based on a composition by Hugo Wolf from 1881. The third stanza of his choral work Resignation from the Sechs geistlichen Lieder is heard in Diskreter Wolf, extremely slowed down and fragmented. Chord by chord, the original Wolf is discretely (in the mathematical sense) sampled, microtonally bent, and enriched with artificial vocal sounds. It is essentially the vocal imitation of an electronic sound synthesis. On top of this, digital artifacts are superimposed, presenting further layers of artificiality visually and sonically in contrast to the historical source material. Despite these technical methods, Hugo Wolf’s late-Romantic musical language resonates throughout the piece. The associated bourgeois longing for beauty and redemption contrasts with the comfort suggested by Eichendorff through (collective) suicide. The compositional interventions heighten this hauntingly dystopian effect and create a sort of post-human soundscape.

(Luxa Mart*in Schüttler)

Text

Come, thou, world’s comfort, silent night,

How softly do thy feet alight!

The gentle air is sleeping.

A sailor home from travels long,

Sings to the sea his even song

In God’s protected harbor.

Like fleeting clouds the years have gone

And I am left here all alone,

Bereft of all devotion.

And then thou comest wondrously.

As I am sitting wearily,

My eyes turned to the ocean.

O thou true comfort, silent night.

How dearly welcome is thy sight,

As lonely thoughts befall me.

O grant me rest from love and scorn,

Until th’eternal rosy dawn.

Will o’er the treetops call me.

Joseph von Eichendorff, Der Einsiedler (1837)

Luxa Mart*in Schüttler works as a composer, performer, and media artist with an aesthetic focus on the recontextualization of social, media, performative, biographical, or bodily conditions in music. For this, they deliberately employ disparate sonorities, structural imbalances, and sonic diversity, often interspersed with pop cultural references.

Luxa’s works often emerge in collaboration with selected allies, such as the Nadar Ensemble, asamisimasa, MAM. manufaktur für aktuelle Musik, Ictus, ensemble mosaik, or Trio Catch. Furthermore, their music is performed by numerous renowned ensembles and featured at international festivals. Additional contributions include publications, radio broadcasts, lectures, courses, performances, installations, exhibitions, and concerts worldwide.

After studying composition and music theory at the Folkwang University of the Arts with Nicolaus A. Huber and Ludger Brümmer, they were a fellow at institutions such as ZKM Karlsruhe, Villa Serpentara, and in 2023/24, they were a Fellow at the Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin. They have taught at the Hochschule für Musik und Darstellende Kunst Frankfurt am Main and at Philipps-Universität Marburg. Since 2014, Luxa Mart*in Schüttler has been a professor of composition at the Hochschule für Musik und Darstellende Kunst Stuttgart.

“Memories are much tougher than you think. Just like the hearts that carry them.”

“My memories don’t feel like they were pulled from the root. Even when they fade, something remains. Like tiny seeds that might sprout again when the rain falls. And even when a memory completely disappears, something remains in the heart. A slight tremor or pain, a bit of joy, a tear.”

(Excerpts from Yōko Ogawa: The Memory Police. Kodansha, Japan. 1994)

Elena Rykova (*1991 in Ufa, Russia) studied composition with Yuri Kasparov at the Moscow Conservatory, with Johannes Schöllhorn at the Hochschule für Musik und Tanz in Cologne, and completed her PhD at Harvard University under Chaya Czernowin. The composer, interdisciplinary artist, and performance artist explores various forms of creative expression, often combining traditional instruments with found objects, movement, and sound. Her scores are characterized by innovative notation and have been exhibited in international art museums. In complex polyphonic textures, she explores the fragility and impact of sound through the creative use of amplification, with the bodies of instruments often serving as acoustic filters. Elena invites listeners into immersive worlds, where each piece conveys a unique sense of time and a feeling of place.

Her music has been performed by leading ensembles of contemporary new music and presented at renowned festivals worldwide. She also works as a professor and guest composer. Elena is a member of the programming committee of the Société de Musique Contemporaine (SMC) and a board member of the Swiss Music Edition (SME). Since August 2024, she has been the artistic director of the Basel-based ensemble Lemniscate. Elena Rykova currently resides in Lausanne, Switzerland.

Loops for Basses was created in the context of the DORA music theatre, where the Neue Vocalsolisten played a key role, and was commissioned by Andreas Fischer for his duo with Theo Nabicht. I have had a long-standing collaboration and friendship with the latter. The piece primarily arose from an auditory conception, already pre-shaped by the two very specific sound sources. In addition, a text emerged, which, like the sound itself, is free from recognizable semantics but still embodies gestural intentionalities that point only to themselves. I quickly associated this with the gesture of political speeches and their transformation into “Empty Words”: You still hear the speech, but you no longer follow the meanings; instead, you are caught in the mere flow of language sounds and gestures. These gestures, in turn, are deconstructed through the grammar of the loops, oscillating between the suggestion and manipulation of meanings on the one hand, and the loss of meaning on the other.

(Bernhard Lang)

Bernhard Lang (*1957 in Linz) studied composition, piano, jazz theory, harmony, philosophy, and German studies. From 1977 to 1981, he worked with various jazz groups as a composer, arranger, and pianist. He delved into electronic music and computer technology, and since 2003, he has focused extensively on dance, collaborating with Xavier Le Roy, Willi Dorner, Christine Gaigg, and Silke Grabinger. From 2003 onwards, he was an adjunct professor of composition at the University of the Arts in Graz. He has participated in numerous festivals, including Steirischer Herbst, Moscow Alternativa Festival, Wien Modern, Munich Opera Festival, Darmstadt Summer Courses, Salzburg Festival, MaerzMusik Berlin, Contempuls Prague, ECLAT, Moving Sounds New York, Ostrava Days, and others.

Kuba Krzewinski (*1988) graduated with distinction in violin from the H. Wieniawski School of Music in Łódź. He studied composition at the Music Academy in Łódź, the Koninklijk Conservatorium in The Hague, and the Hochschule für Musik in Dresden. His composition professors included Zygmunt Krauze, Krzysztof Knittel, Yannis Kyriakides, Mayke Nas, Manos Tsangaris, and Mark Andre. He has received various scholarships and awards, including the 2019 Förderpreis for young composers from the Saxon Composers’ Association. In 2018, he was nominated by Culture.pl as one of the ten most promising young Polish composers. In 2019, a DVD featuring his recent chamber music works was released by Bôłt Records in Poland. In September 2024, the world premiere of the show Ep, which he co-directed with Agnieszka Jakimiak and for which he composed the music, took place at the TR Warszawa Theatre. In his work, Kuba Krzewinski focuses on the sense of touch as the origin of sound, as the axis of the relationship between performer and instrument, and as a medium for social communication. By incorporating performative elements, multimedia, and tactile references, Krzewinski offers the audience new ways to approach both the music and the body.

The seven singers are constantly searching for new forms of vocal expression in exchange with composers. One focus is the work with artists who virtuously exploit the possibilities of digital media, with a delight in networking, in playing with genres, in dissolving space, perspectives and functions. Interdisciplinary formats between music theater, performance, installation and concert staging characterize up to 30 world premieres a year. In addition to vocal chamber music theater, the Neue Vocalsolisten explore “magic spaces” together with artists and web designers – performance formats between analog and digital perception. Master classes and a digital “NVS Academy” introduce young artists to the challenges of experimental vocal music. In 2021, the Neue Vocalsolisten became the first ensemble to be awarded the Silver Lion of the Biennale di Venezia. In 2022 they received the Premio Abbiati della critica.

Theo Nabicht / Musician/Composer (Saxophone, bass clarinet and contrabass clarinet) Born in 1963. 1983Ð1987 he studied saxophone, flute and piano at the Berliner Musikhochschule “Hanns Eisler”. 1995Ð1997 he studied at the Conservatoire de Strasbourg, specializing in bass clarinet (Meisterklasse).

After 1985 he gathered performance experience in collective projects with musicians such as Bert Wrede, Mauro Gnecchi Thierry Madiot, Michail Alperin, Anthony Braxton, Peter Kowald with Fred Frith.He is a long time member of the Kammerensemble Neue Musik Berlin and has performed as a guest with Klangforum Wien and Ensemble Modern. Additionally, he worked as a composer for theater, dance and television productions.

In recent years, Theo Nabicht is appearing increasingly as a soloist, focusing in this capacity on compositions by contemporary composers as well as compositions of his own. Theo Nabicht has participated in numerous record and CD recordings and works primarily in the fields of contemporary music, improvised music and composition in a variety of genres.

Theo Nabicht has played Wolfgang Stryi’s Selmer contrabass clarinet since 2007.