Solaria

‘Solaria’ for orchestra is a one-movement work with which I want to thematise our dependence on technological developments. The title ‘Solaria’ refers to the fantasy planet ‘Solaria’ by science fiction author Isaac Asimov. The orchestra describes an imaginary desert landscape and the mechanised civilisation of individual regions, with the musicians using innovative playing techniques such as ‘Cyber Singing’, which I used in my symphonic work ‘Cyborg’ in 2010. Here, electronic sound clips prepared by the composer are played by the musicians via mobile phone. With this possibility, I create a new kind of interaction between the composer and the musician. At the end of the piece I quote a popular melody that refers to the old song ‘Daisy Bell’ (Harry Dacre, 1892). This melody was played into an IBM 704 computer in 1961 and was used by researchers in 1974 for the first demonstration of so-called ‘pure-dichotic’ perception.’ (Ferran Cruixent)