Composer Peter Kerkelov about his new work:

Last summer, “Off the Beaten Path Festival” director Lora Tchekoratova invited me to the Bulgarian village of Kovachevitsa (where the festival takes place) as part of a residency program for composers. Within a week, I had the opportunity to meet the exceptional people who organize and participate in the festival and thus exchanged ideas on what the new piece could be like for the next edition of the festival in 2024. Thus was born an idea for a work for 2 violins, 2 cellos, clarinet, piano and electronics. The time spent with the musicians, as well as getting to know the village of Kovachevitsa, had a direct impact on the music in this work.

… then space began to toll … 

melodies and vibrations for chamber ensemble and electronics

 I live now, but my earthly footsteps fall into the footsteps of millions of departed souls who once lived here. A step is a way of moving, but also an intersection between the human body and the planet.

I don’t know if the maddening summer heat in the Bulgarian village Kovachevitsa carried me into a state of delirium or inspiration, but then I felt with my feet the melodies of the many who had inhabited this space before us. They came to me like shards of a broken mirror – containing and concealing parts of the past. The hidden – shrouded in mystery, obscure, unknown, forever lost – dissolved to manifest itself in unlived memory – vibrations of unfinished songs. I share with you these eavesdropped songs of light drawn from the dark blue of oblivion.

Stepping on the pulsating earth – turned into a tuning fork of non-existent voices, – I remembered a phrase from a poem by Emily Dickinson, “… then space began to toll …” And indeed, the space around me rang. And now it’s your turn to vibrate with it.

I dedicate this work to my companion in life, Anatoli.