Contrechamps Today

Instrumental practices and musical creation take on many different aspects nowadays. Mirroring the identity of Contrechamps, three strands run through our 2024-2025 season: new trends in instrumental writing, the legacy of the 20th century and exploratory practices.

New currents

Several of the numerous paths taken by contemporary composition concern themselves with the listening experience and its related states of consciousness. Kali Malone’s harmonic cycles draw out emotional resonances, Patricia Bosshard summons the near-death experience through the colors of her amplification, and Natacha Diels creates a relationship between sound and listening context by allowing audience and instrumentalists to move around the space. These new currents open up the fields of composition in a continuum with virtuoso writing like that of Enno Poppe and his perpetual proliferation of micro-variations in pitch and rhythm, or Arturo Corrales’ densely charged melodic lines.

Centenaries

The 1924-25 season very literally saw the birth of a number of important composers, artists who came of age at the end of the Second World War and craved utopia, hope and infinity. They would have reached the age of 100 in 2024-2025. Boulez, Nono and Huber revolutionized the writing of their time, and their anniversaries are an opportunity to immerse ourselves in some of their major works and reflect upon their legacy. We can also appreciate the expertise and know-how that Contrechamps has evolved over more than four decades of direct collaboration with this generation. And we must not forget the innovations and legacy of pioneering female electroacoustic musicians who left their mark on the history of music, such as Daphné Oram, another centenarian.

Research and exploration

When Contrechamps’ first-rate instrumentalists spend periods of research with artists from all styles, the result is an exuberant, uninhibited musical universe. This unbridled creativity also comes to the fore in the case of commissions based on so-called open scores and the active involvement of the musicians during long rehearsal processes. These explorations feed an inclusive creative ecosystem, placing instrumental practices at the heart of their times, begetting visions that might well become references in their own right a hundred years from today.

Twelve subscription concerts

Five Thursday evening subscription concerts will take place in the new Auditorium Ansermet, and a further seven in the Victoria Hall, the Comédie de Genève, the Cité Bleue, the Geneva Cathedral, the Salle Communale de Plainpalais and Les 6 toits. They are all unique opportunities to listen and discover. Become a subscriber and join an astonishingly inventive, accessible and openly joyful community. And turn the page to find out how you can join in singing, playing and creating with us.

Serge Vuille, Artistic Director

Contrechamps'
Manifesto

Download Contrechamps' Manifesto: here