Mario Davidovsky's “Synchronisms” are masterpieces of instrumental music with a playback tape that the Ensemble Phoenix Basel had already planned to perform in 2020, but which could not be realized due to the pandemic. Instead, they created a double-LP. For the new edition of the idea of playing Davidovsky's music in concert, the ensemble was able to win the ZHdK Institute for Computer Music and Sound Technology (ICST) as a co-production partner. In this collaboration, seven new compositions by students for the same line-up are being created.
Davidovsky is one of the great figures of American New Music but has hardly been played in Europe so far. He was a pioneer of electronic music, working at the Columbia-Princeton Electronic Music Center as early as 1960. However, his work includes much more than electronic music. His most famous works, the “Synchronisms”—a series of over a dozen works created over a period of more than 40 years—have influenced generations of composers. In combining “classical” instruments with pre-produced electronic sounds, Davidovsky, unlike many other composers in this genre, is not at all interested in particular “sound effects,” but seeks to fuse the instrumental sound with the electronic, creating both continuity and intrinsic musical expression. The earliest “Synchronisms” date from a time when today's sound technology was still in its infancy, but they are nonetheless masterpieces that are second to none. The long period during which the “Synchronisms” were created also documents the technical progress in this field over time. Davidovsky has received an unusually large number of awards for his work, including the Pulitzer Prize, which he was awarded explicitly for his work “Synchronisms No. 6” in 1971.
Tickets are CHF 15-35, and CHF 10 for Colourkey holders and for kids under age 12.

Website
garedunord.ch/en/calendar/2847/davidovsky

Where
Gare du Nord
Schwarzwaldallee 200
4058 Basel

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