Lisa Streich / Zeno Baldi

Orchestra of Black Butterflies is a reflection on the love of the orchestra and its potential transitoriness. The two pianos are tuned a quartertone apart and are both motorised. In the two pianos I have both wind and string instruments at my disposal. The wind instruments play their keys in the normal way, whereas the string instruments play through the paper strips, which are attached to the motors. In addition to that there are orchestral percussions: timpani, triangle and cymbals. The two percussionists are at times soloists with the orchestral percussion, and co-repetitors with the Faderbox.
The piece tries to chase something utopian can you realise the possibilities of the orchestra with only four musicians and eight motors?

Lisa Streich

Laminar Flow was born after a period of experimentations on tactile transducers, feedback systems, and electro-acoustic interactions. The electronics’ output is routed directly to acoustic surfaces (drum’s skin, cymbals, piano strings, etc.), creating a blurred boundary between acoustic and electronic sounds. The title also refers to the rhythmic flow of ever-changing waves, since the piece has been written in a room literally in front of the Ligurian Sea, in early 2021. During that period, every day and every night I watched and listened to the winter sea: the deep and dark blue of the sea at night had a great impact on the way I composed this work, leading me to explore (and embrace) low frequencies and vast resonances.

Zeno Baldi