Today, SEMA by Jacob Mühlrad will be released by Warner Classics. The clarinet concerto is performed by the Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra, clarinettist Magnus Holmander and conductor Martin Fröst, who also premiered the work on April 10, 2024.
SEMA engages with the mystical traditions of Sufism and the Maqam scales. Inspired by the Sufi Whirling ritual, the music embodies ‘the perpetual motion of the universe, from the macroscopic orbits of planets to the microscopic spin of atoms’ (Jacob Mühlrad).
The clarinet, carrying echoes of klezmer techniques and the reed flute which is central to the sema ceremony, takes on the role as a preacher, leading the orchestra and becoming a symbol of longing for unity with the cosmos.
Also included in the album is “Alarm of the Soul”. Jacob Mühlrad and Olga Neuwirth created this short tape piece to capture the ambiguous feeling of a sound that contains both danger and warmth, severity and comfort.
Listen here.
