Energy Archive 4

For over 40 years, Ellen Fullman has been challenging genre boundaries with her performative sound installations such as the Long String Instrument (LSI). In her search for new sounds, she has been inspired by the metal workshops she attended during her studies in fine arts, the minimalist performances of the Judson Dance Theatre, and the compositions of Alvin Lucier. In his music-biographical book Music 109, Lucier notes that the LSI is also a sounding spatial installation of music history and theory. Fullman is deeply interested in tunings and mathematical ratios: she tuned the LSI in Just Intonation, whose intervals and overtones differ from the well temperament familiar to Western ears.

Body, movement, and space are what determine the fascinating harmonies in Fullman’s compositions – using her intuition, she encounters the sites of performance, which play along in an idiosyncratic way. The string lengths of the Long String Instrument, which vary in contrast to violins or guitars, also have a specific influence on the sound. “When bowing lengthwise and playing multiple strings, harmonics emerge from each string on different time scales, too complex to map or predict but very interesting to listen to.”

For MaerzMusik 2026, Fullman continues her exploration of the Long String Instrument – this time together with the JACK Quartet. The composer uses her own performance recordings as a starting point, from which she develops the voices of the quartet. The interplay allows for ever new filtrations, modulations, and embellishments, which stand on their own in Fullman’s composing, yet are not an end in themselves: “In my music I wish to reveal the physics of string vibration itself, intending to bring awareness to the beauty of the structure of the universe in which we live.”