The 8th impuls Festival for Contemporary Music will close with zone expérimentale basel and Ex-Sentia Ensemble, two Swiss ensembles, that originate from the Master’s program for Contemporary Music at the Hochschule für Musik in Basel/Switzerland and now gain additional expertise from working with composers on site at the impuls Academy. With works by impuls Academy tutors and the world premiere of “in dysto” by Stylianos Dimou, who has already won numerous prizes in his young impressive career, 12 intensive days of the impuls Academy and the impuls Festival come to an end with more than 240 international Academy participants from more than 50 nations and 5 continents present – in dystopian times an almost utopian project of hope for a future, that knows how to reconcile the individual and the collective and how to develop perspectives again.

Ex-Sentia formed in 2020 as a response to certain concerns of its members, such as the longed-for immediacy pursued by today’s society, digitalization, and the duality between the person and the virtual self in virtual spaces. In the face of all of this, Ex-Sentia seeks through music to make its audience reflect, while at the same time opening the doors to experimentation in terms of sound. Taking Trio Accanto as its most direct influence, this ensemble introduces a fourth component to this specific formation of piano, saxophone and percussion, through the incorporation of the audiovisual media of our era. Hence Ex-Sentia: the desire to reach deep into today’s music, while maintaining the link with the traditional instrumental era.

zone expérimentale basel, the ensemble of sonic space basel at Hochschule für Musik Basel/Switzerland, is a group of students who distinguish themselves equally as exceptional artistic personalities and virtuoso players. zone expérimentale is not a classical ensemble, but represents a framework for discovery – for the players as well as for the audience. The focus is put on discovering different possibilities of musical expression in contemporary music, but also on works by the pioneers of today’s music. Thus, chamber music programs alternate with installations or improvisational works.