Founded two decades ago in Geneva, Switzerland, Ensemble Vortex is a dynamic collective, whose members share a desire to create new types of repertoires, experiment with sound, and constantly discover emerging artists associated with the new music scene. During the final concert of this year’s Musica Electronica Nova, Ensemble Vortex will perform compositions by members of the group, Daniel Zei, Fernando Garner, and Artur Corrales. The concert programme will be enriched by the premiere of a new work by Monika Szpyrka – one of the leading Polish composers of the young generation.

In today’s society, where communication and images have become so important, facial tracking and recognition algorithms have also spread rapidly. Internet browsers, street surveillance systems, social networks, and even our own smartphones constantly track and tag the appearance of every face. Although they are supposed to be the most expressive part of our personalities, they have also become the subject of marketing. The saturation of the web with multiple images of each of us has transformed our faces into masks and the narcissistic fictions behind them. Daniel Zea interprets the difference between the natural face and its dehumanised version in The Love Letters? How transcendent can their communication consolidated with the network of machines be? What dialogues can arise as a result of the algorithms they produce? Fernando Garnero refers in his work to the relationship between gestures and pantomime. In the enigmatic Contraccolpo for prepared snare drum, wind instrument and electroacoustic device, he clashes the rough murmurs of overlapping layers, examining how it feels to touch various textures, and this is how sounds are produced.

Alfaque rojo by Artur Corrales can be described as a sonic study of the elements. The titular “alfaqui” means a reverse current, a violent turbulence at sea caused by opposing tides. The composer, who comes from Central America, began working on the piece during his stay in his native El Salvador. The renewed contact with the magnificent, dangerous and overwhelming natural phenomenon became a source of inspiration for the music, which in itself reflects untamed currents. The composer illustrates them by juxtaposing contrasting bands of diverse rhythms gradually entering cycles reminiscent of the dangerous breaking of waves.

Ensemble Vortex will also premiere a piece by Monika Szpyrka. “While composing the work, I was guided by the idea of a constantly pulsating energy, constantly present, not always noticed, expressed in elusive but haunting sounds, as if they were sound apparitions, disembodied and alive at the same time. Similar to the results of the ‘Pepper's ghost’ technique of the Victorian theatre, which was based on creating the illusion of a living being, seemingly present, concealed, with whom the only form of contact was watching its reflection,” the artist reveals, speaking about her Ghost-like.