Crux (2022)

This piece explores and challenges the many individual colors in an orchestra, the ingrained hierarchy and conventional chain of command. But most importantly it is a tribute to the many different musicians who bring this giant body of sound to life.

The music moves between a collective unity of the performers and individual identities in sounds, timbres and extended techniques.

The orchestra is placed in four different groups on stage.

In each “ Heart chamber” the orchestra is united in an ambient soft sound scape, a single breathing body of textures and sound. Thus gradually the chambers slowly become more fragmented but the tutti feeling prevails.

In between the four “chambers” each individual group is set in motion as the driving force behind the music. The music is written as a sort of ecosystem of materials that are carried from one group/soloist to another – like tiny blood vessels transporting and moving blood around. Ultimately ending at the same place, the source of origin: the heart.

A web of nerve tissue runs through the heart, conducting the complex signals that govern contraction and relaxation. These signals are transformed into four different chorales called “connective tissue release 1-4”.  

The ever-constant presence of the solo violin, whether in solo material, tutti playing or simply conducting, is the verycenter of this piece: the heart. The heart pumps blood through the network of arteries and veins called the cardiovascular system or in this case, the orchestra.