Petra Strahovnik: SCREAdoM / UnScream
Against the backdrop of a Europe drifting apart, threatened by populism and war, seven composers from the seven republics that emerged from the former Yugoslavia artistically explore the effects of the Balkan wars – an experience that continues to resonate deeply within their societies today. Each of their works offers a highly personal and sensitive artistic response, opening up diverse perspectives on this turbulent era. Belonging to a younger generation, they themselves lived through the wars only as children, teenagers, or not at all. From their encounter with the voices and personalities of the Neue Vocalsolisten Stuttgart, seven performative works for voice and electronics have emerged.
The human voice – inseparably bound to body and individuality, capable of stirring emotions while simultaneously conveying textual meaning – becomes the central artistic challenge. A constructivist compositional approach breaks open to reveal a highly emotional, powerful, and at times brutal sonic landscape.
Themes ranging from serious and ironic retrospectives to future perspectives, from social reflections on the clash of religions and ethnicities, hyperinflation, physical and psychological violence serious and ironic retrospectives to future perspectives, from social reflections on the clash of religions and ethnicities, hyperinflation, physical and psychological violence, unfold into seven strikingly different concertante and music-dramatic works.
A walk-in video installation then opens up a polyphony of voices. In interviews conducted across their homelands – with family members, taxi drivers in Sarajevo, professors in Belgrade, a Ukrainian migrant in Montenegro – and with figures such as Kosovar theater-maker Jeton Neziraj, Slovenian lawyer Miša Zgonec-Rožej, and even an AI robot – the composers capture diverse perspectives on the fragile art of living together across national, ethnic, and religious divides.
Finally, in a coda, the composers return to the themes with a fresh lens. Whereas the concert part looked back on the explosive years of the 1990s, these short musical pieces reach forward – tentative glimpses into an uncertain future suspended between disillusionment and hope.
SCREAdoM
The central theme of this piece is the suffering of innocent victims of war, that are helpless and are not able to run or fight the attack. It focuses on the horror of the moment(s) of the traumatic event as well as the reverberations of it (PTSD) and its effects on several mental aspects of the victims life after the attack. An aspect of Performance Art is implemented in this piece as well. A clean operatic voice shifting to extreme vocal techniques known in the world of extreme Metal vocalists and keeping the same pitch is used to, on the microlevel, bring you into the short but extremely traumatic experience and stretch the seconds of the attack with the sounds of a torturous scream coming from a deep place of pain, horror and uncertainty.
- Composer(s) Petra Strahovnik
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Title(s) of the Work(s)
18:00 - Part 1: Сoncert (approx. 80 min)
Hanan Hadžajlić (Bosnia)
Requiem ex Machina
for six amplified voices (2022/23)
Jug Marković (Serbia)
NULA for six voices (2022)
Ana Pandevska (North Macedonia)
Electroacoustic mantra "From ex YU to EU“
for soprano, mezzosoprano and fixed media (2023)
Nina Perovic (Montenegro)
Penetrations III
for six voices and electronics (2023/2025) WP of the new version
Ylli Daklani (Kosovo)
When all the leaves have been burned
for three voices (2025)
Petra Strahovnik (Slovenia)
SCREAdoM
for five voices, sound installation and electronics (2023)
Helena Skljarov (Croatia)
The Blue Giraffe
for five voices, electronics and video (2023)19:30 - Part 2: The Fragile Art of Living Together
7-channel-video installation20:30 - Part 3: Coda (approx. 30 min)
performance with 6 singers, video, and live-electronics - Performer, Ensemble or Orchestra Neue Vocalsolisten: Johanna Vargas - soprano Susanne Leitz-Lorey - soprano Chiara Ducomble - mezzosoprano Martin Nagy - tenor Guillermo Anzorena - baritone Andreas Fischer - bass
