Composer Festival – Zone Zero

Her music includes traces of Stravinsky, Monteverdi, jazz, pop and hip-hop. But its roots reach all the way back to Gustav Mahler, Alban Berg and Arnold Schoenberg. She is also particularly inspired by visual arts, performance and installation art, literature, theatre and film. It all merges in her music into something entirely new, personal, and infused with a contemporary sound. When her opera Orlando had its world premiere at the Vienna State Opera in October 2019 it was the first time an opera by a female composer was performed on that historic stage.

In Trurliade – Zone Zero for solo percussion and orchestra, Olga Neuwirth’s fascination with film, wind-up toys and robots is highly evident. The title refers to a character – Trurl – from Polish science fiction author Stanislaw Lem’s short stories collected in The Cyberiad. The music is incredibly sophisticated, with a connection to artist Jean Tinguely’s sculptural machines which swing between humour and the utmost gravity.

One of Olga Neuwirth’s many sources of inspiration is the music of Greek composer Iannis Xenakis. Shaar for strings contains many typical traits of his music: notes sliding between different pitches, solidly attacking clusters of notes, manically repetitive rhythms, and a sense of archetypical, ancient ritual.