In addition to Samir Odeh-Tamimi's work commissioned by the Biennale de Venezia, the concert at the Teatro alle Tese will also feature Wolfgang Rihm's Tutuguri VI (Crosses), composed in 1981.
Samir Odeh-Tamimi explains his work: "ROAÏ comes from the Arabic word roaïa and can be translated as ‘early morning dreams’. In Arabic mythology, these are defined as divine messages about things that could happen. Kron is the abbreviation of the Greek word krónos (Saturn). ROAÏKRON could be understood as a Saturnian message.
Gigantic rings orbit the planet Saturn. They consist of an enormous number of individual small chunks of material. The size of these particles of ice and rock ranges from dust particles to a diameter of several metres. These floating particles find their musical equivalent in an accumulation of layered, recurring rhythmic formations with the different timbres of percussion instruments, produced by fur, iron, wood and so on.
Aleatoric rhythmic structures, which are often repeated, lead to unpredictable rhythmic formations, a highly complex rhythmic fabric. In addition, the performers articulate fragments of speech that can occasionally escalate into a veritable scream and - similar to other compositions of mine - have an archaic effect. In other, ritualistic parts of the work, on the other hand, there are sometimes gentle, sometimes abrupt transitions from orderly unison passages to chaos. Different rhythmic structures are often layered on top of each other, as if they were floating around us in space like dust particles.
At a certain point in the work, the musicians leave their positions. With hand drums, they wander through the room and through the audience, taking their own rhythmic structures and fragments of speech with them, freely chosen aleatorically from the composed material. After about three minutes, they all return to their starting positions and an explosive music resounds, condensing what was just heard. It leaves behind a nervous calm, like after an explosion or a fire: it is quiet, but smoke rises here and there, which we may have to traverse."
