Concerts

For her concert, conductor Elena Schwarz has collaborated with the Basel Sinfonietta to create an impactful narrative. The focus is on traumatic experiences and strategies for overcoming them – put out there by women but not but not exclusively from a female perspective. Joana Aderi has worked as a composer and music therapist, including in psychiatric institutions and prisons. Having been raised in a remote boarding school in central Switzerland, the nexus between mental illness and music is a pivotal element of her oeuvre.

Cassandra Miller's «I cannot love without trembling» delves further into this nexus. The title of the viola concerto, composed in 2022 and performed with Geneviève Strosser, who teaches in Basel, quotes a line from a letter by French-Jewish philosopher and social revolutionary Simone Weil. «Human existence is so fragile and exposed to such dangers that I cannot love without trembling.»

Israel's Sivan Eldar's «Una mujer derramada» («A Woman Spilled») from 2019 seeks to make the voice of a spilled, battered woman audible. «Passing into many and yet moving as one», it reads. The text was written by the singer, performer and poet Amyra León, who performs the solo part. Sara Glojnarić's «sugarcoating #4» is characterized by an unparalleled rush of power and energy. The native Croatian is a rising star. She was most recently awarded the SWR Symphony Orchestra Prize at the 2024 Donaueschingen Music Festival. The four-part «Sugarcoating» cycle concludes with «sugarcoating #4»from 2022. Sonic pop music fetishes are driven to extremes, resulting in a high-energy sensory overload.