SWR Sinfonieorchester Baden-Baden und Freiburg

The great concert hall at Berlin’s Philharmonie is a more than suitable venue for the performance of composer Mark Andre’s grand orchestral trilogy …auf… (2005–07). After their resounding success with the première performance of …auf… III in Donaueschingen in 2007, the SWR Sinfonieorchester under chief conductor Sylvain Cambreling will now perform the complete work. The live realization of the unusual electronic sound textures and spaces in the composition is owed to Mark Andre’s collaboration with the SRW’s Experimental Studio.

“Auf” means “off” and “up” and hence refers to thresholds and transitions: to be off or up, to set off, to take off… . Mark Andre says: “It’s about the threshold between spaces and families of sound, a threshold that also has an existential and metaphysical dimension. The metaphysical model of these compositions is Christ’s Resurrection, which stands for the most powerful and wonderful transitions between different states of existence.”

The concert will open with Luciano Berio’s extraordinary SOLO (1999/2000) for trombone and orchestra. Moving beyond the traditions of solo concerts, this piece offers a redefinition of the genre and not only reinterprets the meaning of virtuosity, but also abolishes traditional hierarchies by according solos to the soloist and the orchestra. In Luciano Berio’s words, SOLO is not so much a concert as a meeting of two solitudes.