Vortex Temporum

Send us a textA few days before the Portuguese premiere of Silvia Borzelli's (Rome, 1978) A Self-portrait (with Anatsui in the background) [2022], this Netherlands based Italian composer shares some insights on her own music, erosion, resistance and whatever comes before music.credits: stalagma (Anna Politkovskaja in memoriam) [2007], for piano | Emanuele Torquati > piano // zattere [2013], for piano and stereo soundtrack | Vittoria Quartararo > piano // hyper-image [2020, rev. 2023], for piano concertante and 5 instruments | mdi ensemble // A Self-Portrait (with Anatsui in the background) [2022], for prepared piano | Paolo Gorini > pianovortextemporum.com

Send us a textRight before the release of the album “City Walk”,  in which Nuno Aroso and his ensemble (Clamat - colectivo variável) perform João Pedro Oliveira  (Lisbon, 1959) percussion music, Portuguese composer based in Santa Barbara - California, tells us about the universe from which his music arises.Would it all be rock?credits: In the House of the Glass King [2021], concerto for marimba, vibrafone, percussion ensemble and fixed media electronics | Clamat – Colectivo Variável; Nuno Aroso and Henrique Ramos as soloists// Vox Sum Vitae [2011], for vibraphone and fixed media electronics | Nuno Aroso > vibraphone // Broken Loops [2013], for 2 percussion players | Vitória do Bem and João Pedro Lourençovortextemporum.com

Send us a textOne of Sivan Cohen Elias' (Jerusalem, 1976) major interests must be sound puppetry. In Vortex Temporum episode number 39, this Israeli composer lets us listen to a conversation she has with her husband and collaborator, Rey Hulme, about this central matter of her own music.credits:How to Make a Monster [2021], for a performer with objects and live electronics | performance by Winnie Huang // Escape Room [2024], for trio percussion | ensemble Line Upon Line Percussion // Whistle Town [2022], for 8 musicians, live electronics, and video | ensemble soundinitiative // .onion - short opera, for tenor, soprano, electric guitar, percussion, cello, string orchestra, and fixed media.vortextemporum.com

Send us a textIn episode 38 of Vortex Temporum podcast, Sara Stevanović (Belgrade, 1998) reflects on Harry Lehmann's 'Ideologiemaschinen: Wie Cancel Culture funktioniert'. credits:search: pink fingers fragile archives [2024]. live performance by Ensemble Recherche at the Wittener Tage für neue Kammermusik festival 2024. vortextemporum.com

Send us a textSwiss composer with roots in Trinidad and Tobago Jessie Cox (1995) reflects on what music can be beyond music. Isn't it about existence after all ? credits: Invocation: Nebula, from When You're a Star [UT007]vortextemporum.com

Send us a textRiccardo Nova (Milan, 1960) gave us an interview to produce a Vortex Temporum podcast episode and he told us about his marvellous adventures as an innate traveller. Finally, the composer in him prevailed and he could not help but make us a beautiful piece of music.vortextemporum.com

Vortex Temporum podcast's intermission finally comes to an end with Zara Ali's cookbook. The young and promising North-American composer Zara Ali (Memphis, 1995) lets us get into her home and loud thoughts before discussing with her partner a couple of their families' specialties. Can you smell it?credits:Isolation Forest [2023] | IEMA-Ensemble 2022/23 (impuls festival) // BABY BOT BUILDS A MUSIC BOX [2023] for orchestra and electronics | Sinfonieorchester Münster // Red City [2021] | acousmatic (vocals from Neue Vocalsolisten Stuttgart)vortextemporum.com

The last Vortex Temporum episode of 2024 Spring introduces us to the delicate universe of Canadian composer Chiyoko Szlavnics (Toronto, 1967), who takes us on a brief journey through the mysteries of listening. credits:For Eva Hesse [2006] sinewaves - excerpts) // Oracle I & II (excerpts). Ensemble Contrechamps (dress rehearsal, at Bellelay Abbey, Switzerland).Field recordings: Canada, Germany, Poland, Switzerland.Test recordings made at Bellelay Abbey, Switzerland.Research recordings made at St. Pierre Cathédrale, Geneva. Vincent Thevanaz: organ.vortextemporum.com

In this episode, French composer Clara Maïda (1963) shares "a few thoughts about some aspects of AI and about the conception of the Human psyche that lies in the background of this technology. Starting with a reflection on algorithmic systems and the excessive decision power given to AI, the podcast seems to have finally turned into a kind of manifesto for the psychic unconscious, the world of affects, sensations, imagination and artistic practice, all these ways of apprehending the world that lead to an attempt to free oneself from the possible alienation that we undergo in our social systems." credits:(a)utom@ton [2024] // Web-wake [2017] // Web-wave [2016] // King(a)abstract [2012] // Shel(l)ter - hinter… ( ) …Eiter [2010] // Shel(l)ter - später… ( ) …Winter [2009] // Kinê-Diffr(a)t [2008] // Fluctuatio (in)animi [2006] // Via rupta [2005]vortextemporum.com

Polish composer and singer Agata Zubel (Wrocław, 1978) is the voice of Vortex Temporum's 32th episode. She deals intimately with vocal sounds, both as singer and as a master composer of vocal music: reflecting on language, meaning and emotionality is a natural extension of her work. Have a listen and find out the world of this composer/performer!vortextemporum.com

In Vortex Temporum's 31st episode, Tokyo based Irish composer Anna Murray (1987) shares some thoughts on music and the influence of Japanese culture in her work.credits:Rndr 12 (Paths) | Anna Murray > electronics // Azuma-asobi (versions 1&2) | Anna Murray > piano // LIT | Michelle O'Rourke > voice // Both Beaming and Beckoning | Alex Koi > voice; Michelle Hromin and Zachary Good > clarinet; Andres Guerra > guitar; Noelia Cruz > violinvortextemporum.comvortextemporum.com

Sofia Avramidou (1988) reflects on both the creative process and her roots as a Greek musician. credits:What can that be but my apple-tree? [2023], for string quartet | 2e2m string quartet // Géranomachie [2021], for large ensemble and electronics | Ensemble Intercontemporain // A hug to die [2023], for ensemble | Ensemble Intercontemporainvortextemporum.com

Instead of letting us listen to his own music, Spanish composer Manuel Rodríguez-Valenzuela (Valencia, 1980) prefers to show us the music he grew up with, which is part of his most intimate story. While trying to recognise Manuel's multiple references, we can not avoid the nostalgia of a lost world where Time was much slower.Have a listen and share with us the most important works you discovered in your own journey.vortextemporum.com

The 28th episode of Vortex Temporum podcast brings us Vienna based Italian composer Lorenzo Troiani (1989) with some thoughts about perception and attentiveness. credits: Dalla voce. Instabile [2012] for contrabass | Florentin Ginot > double bassvortextemporum.com

The Irish composer Karen Power (1977) shares a couple of stories about some of the wildest listening experiences she has had.credits:field recording made in Rainforest in Laos // Instruments of Ice [2015] | Quiet Music Ensemble & Arctic Ice (to be released later in 2024).vortextemporum.com

The UK based Argentinean composer Alejandro Viñao (Buenos Aires, 1951) stars the 26th episode of our podcast and invites us to "look at the world from the opposite point of view" we normally hold. Alejandro quotes Eduardo Galeano, Laurent Binet and also Walt Whitman and, by listening to him, we immediately feel the urge to do the (not so) simple exercise of thinking the world in the perspective of the other.credits: POEMS & PRAYERS [2023], for 16 singers, 2 pianos and 4 percussion players | The Yale Choral Artists & The Percussion Collective; Jeffrey Douma > conductorvortextemporum.com

In this episode of Vortex Temporum, Leigh Landy (1951) first shares his sadness about the lack of impact of most innovative music and suggests that things don't have to be this way. He then engages in a dialogue with re-re-composed samples from his Radio Series in which connections with listeners' experience are made, attempting to demonstrate, as stated in German in the final sample of this podcast, that ‘everything that you hear turns into musical sound'.credits:Oh là la radio [F, 2007] (8 ch) // To BBC or Not [UK, 2008] (8 ch) // Radio-aktiv [D, 2011] // China Radio Sound [CN, 2013] (5.1) made in collaboration with students from the Shenyang Conservatory of Music // Mezihlas -- Přeshlas – Nahlas (Radio – Voice – Overs) [CZ, 2017] (8 ch) // On the Éire [IRL, NI, 2018] (8 ch) // Aplican Términos y Condiciones [MX, 2022] (8 ch)vortextemporum.com

The 24th episode of Vortex Temporum podcast brings us a dialogue between Klaus Ospald and Klaus Ospald (1956). Let's check if this German composer agrees with himself.credits:Maíz raíz, menos criatura [2014/2015], for orchestra, piano and chamber choir, on text by Miguel Hernández | Markus Bellheim > piano; Singer Pur; Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra; Peter Rundel > conductor // Sopra un basso rilievo antico sepolcrale... [2008], from the Leopardi-Zyklus, for mixed choir, bass tuba, four percussionists and live electronics | WDR Rundfunkchor Köln; Hans Nickel > Basstuba; Schlagquartett Köln; Experimentalsstudio des SWR (Reinhold Braig and Joachim Haas > sound direction); Rupert Huber > conductorvortextemporum.com

2024's first episode of Vortex Temporum podcast features Nigerian born composer, based in Switzerland since 1968, Charles Uzor  (Udo Mbaise, 1961). Charles guides us along the episode with his voice, thoughts and sounds in order to offer us his manifesto. If you do not know his work yet, you might be very well surprised by clicking play.credits:qui ainsi me refait…. veoir seulement et oïr [2003], for guitar quartet | guitar ensemble 'quasi fantasia' (Christian Bissig > standard ten-string guitar; Karin Rüdt > octavine guitar; Susanne Ott > terz guitar; Gudrun Bachmann > quinte-basse guitar) // Jaray's journey to the Ba-Benzélé [2022], for Ondes Martenot and hybrid electronics | Caroline Ether > ondes martenot; Charles Uzor > sound bawls, piano reverb, electronicstexts (also by Charles Uzor)Manifesto. Nach der Natur // 10 Bamboos // Snowvortextemporum.com

The last Vortex Temporum's episode of 2023 arrives from France, where Iranian born composer Sina Fallahzadeh (1981) lives and works. Sina shares with us some timeless thoughts on life and music surgically wrapped in delicate sound.credits: sound material from Arche [2020] // Yasnâ [2019], for choir and electronics - commissioned by IRCAM and Estonian Philharmonic Chamber Choir // Métanoïa [2019], for baritone, ensemble and electronics, commissioned by IRCAM and Ensemble l'Itinéraire. vortextemporum.com

Closing the year 2023, Colone based Portuguese composer Luís Antunes Pena (Lisbon, 1973) reveals that, for himself, composing means to be able to dive into a domain that one does not control totally. Or perhaps this episode is about his addiction to buying books about anything. Anyway, have a listen to his beautiful analog synthesizer improvisation while discovering the his world.credits: improvisations with Serge Analog Synthesizer and Csound processing.vortextemporum.com