The Ukrainian vocal ensemble Alter Ratio makes its Dutch debut – their only concert in the Netherlands. The programme LUX AETERNA.REVOICE places György Ligeti’s iconic Lux Aeterna alongside four contemporary works specially composed in memory of Ukrainian artists who lost their lives in the war.

György Ligeti’s 16-part masterpiece, renowned for its ethereal soundscapes, acquires an even more poignant dimension in this performance: Alter Ratio’s twelve voices are joined by four electronic parts – symbolic echoes of the voices silenced by war.

Each of the new works offers a distinct musical reflection on memory and loss. In Disappearing Voices, Maxim Kolomiiets conveys the fragility of voices dissolving into darkness. Maxim Shalygin’s Sub Rosa, set to a poem by Robert Frost, unfolds as an intense labyrinth of sound where melody and electronics alternately embrace and contradict one another. Alla Zagaykevych’s Psalms of Falling evokes a constant motion between hope and despair, while Bulgarian composer Peter Kerkelov’s Phos-phorus lets the light of departed souls continue to glow as beacons for the living.

LUX AETERNA.REVOICE is more than a concert: it is a musical monument of remembrance, but also a beacon of hope. Presented in The Hague – the international city of peace and justice – it resounds as a powerful statement for freedom, culture, and human dignity.

Program:

György Ligeti
Lux Aeterna (1966) – for 16 voices, in a version for 12 voices and live electronics

Maxim Kolomiiets
Disappearing Voices (2023) – for vocal ensemble and electronics

Maxim Shalygin
Sub Rosa (2023) – for vocal ensemble and electronics (based on text by Robert Frost)

Alla Zagaykevych
Psalms of Falling (2023) – for vocal ensemble and electronics

Peter Kerkelov
Phos-phorus (2023) – for vocal ensemble and electronics

This concert has been made possible thanks to the support of the Ukraine Institute and the Ernst von Siemens Music Foundation