I am very happy to present our big new project - Concept Store Quartet.

After weeks of talking to composers, trying out, organizing, practicing for 14 hours a day we came out last Sunday, 27. January 2019. The concert was sold out  :)  and we got a wonderful feedback. I am looking forward to next concerts in Graz (Impulse Academy) and Basel (Attacka Festival).

27.01.2019, 17.00

Musikerwohnhaus, Basel

Program:

• Stylianos Dimou – Sur les traces de la fissure (2018)
• B. Younge (quartet version premiere)
• Y. Yu (premiere)

Concept Store Quartet

Concept Store Quartet was formed by musicians from four different countries with a common vision of contemporary chamber music. Having met at the Music Academy in Basel in 2017, they are currently finishing the Specialised Master of Arts in Contemporary Music, studying with Michael Svoboda, Marcus Weiss and Jürg Henneberger. The special profile of the quartet shows in their unusual instrumentation: saxophone, violin, percussion, accordion – four instruments from four different groups and with four different histories. Considering this a strength, ensemble cooperates with composers especially interested in this combination: Stylianos Dimou, Anda Kryeziu, Bethany Younge, Yulan Yu, John Menoud and others.  

Pablo González Balaguer, baritone saxophone 
Alicja Pilarczyk, violin 
Oded Geizhals, percussion
Nejc Grm, accordion 

Stylianos Dimou 
Sur les traces de la fissure (2018) – premiere
for baritone saxophone, violin, percussion and accordion

Program notes:

In my piece “Sur les traces de la fissure ” I want to address issues of mechanic repetitiveness and complex juxtaposition of concrete acoustic material. The sonic archetype of the piece reflects the physical state of the accordion’s bellows the moment they unfold and stretch. I want to grasp and mimic the various states of granular, quasi sticky sounds, produced due to the cold state of the instrument when someone opens the bellows for the first time.  On the other side, there is the idea of friction as it appears within the metallic system of the instrument during the sound production. The two ideas come to collide and emerge in a discourse of mechanic repetition and non-linear development.