nadir vassena – monumento (2021)

nadir vassena monumento - for one or two soprano saxophones, piano, sine-wave sounds, and the names of children who were victims of the Holocaust. The composition bears the title "monumento" because, as is often the case with sculptures serving this function, it is erected in memory of an important historical event—here, an emblematically negative one—within a public space (in this case, the concert setting). A monument may also take the form of a sculpture marking a grave. This work allows reality to enter art explicitly, namely through tragic historical events. Among other things, it seeks to offer the audience an opportunity to rethink reality by incorporating a list of the names of children who were victims of the Holocaust. A grain of sand: names selected at random from the lists of those murdered in the extermination camps during the final years of the National Socialist catastrophe. During the compositional process, Mahler’s first Kindertotenlied gradually found its way into the piece. The project began from a limited and personal event that led me to Mahler and was then expanded and generalized into the tragedy of the Holocaust. The personal and the collective—another theme that is becoming increasingly important in my work: the relationship between individual and collective histories. This work is not a work of art, but rather a moment of reflection, a modest and humble monument. FX KOLLEKTIV – Pau Ignacio Roig & Alejandro Oliván, saxophonesCarlos Gil-Gonzalo, piano Druckereihalle Ackermannshof, Basel23 June 2023