たまゆら - Tamayura (2026)

Aya Yoshida

Um verkið frá tónskáldi:

たまゆら - Tamayura - is a classical Japanese word evoking “a fleeting sound or moment”— like the delicate chime of beads softly touching, or a barely perceptible resonance between silences. It suggests ephemeral beauty, subtle emotion, and a presence lingering at the boundary between sound and silence.

This work incorporates elements of ingressive speech, a distinctive form of speech produced while inhaling, associated particularly with Icelandic speech, alongside a short excerpt from the Man’yōshū, the oldest extant anthology of Japanese poetry.

Through these two distant poetic traditions, the piece creates a meeting point grounded in breath, attentive listening, and the presence of what cannot be spoken.

Lyrics:

玉響　昨夕　見物　今朝　可戀物
(たまゆらに　きのふのゆふべ　みしものを
けふのあしたに　こふべきものか)

Man’yōshū,
Book 11, Poem 2391

Modern translation:

We met but a moment ago; must I already long for you this morning?

Bønnebog (2022) 

Jeppe Ernst

Segja má að þögnin sé grunnstef í verkum danska tónskáldsins Jeppe Ernst. Flest verka hans eru hljóðlaus og mætti einna helst líkja við dansverk eða gjörning, en byggja þó á lögmálum tónsköpunar. Þögnin í verkum hans verður oft spennuþrungin, og geta hreyfingarnar virst vélrænar - þrátt fyrir að vera eðlislægar mannskepnunni. Í verkinu Bønnebog - eða Bænabók -  standa flytjendur hlið við hlið og hreyfa eingöngu höfuð og andlit. Snöggar hreyfingar og höfuðrykkingar mynda þannig téða spennu og vekja hugrenningatengsl við ýmis samskiptamynstur og alla þá tjáningu sem fram fer án orða í daglegu lífi. Þess má geta að Jeppe Ernst hlaut nýverið tilnefningu til Tónlistarverðlauna Norðurlandaráðs.

Facing the Forests (2025) 

Udi Perlman

Um verkið frá tónskáldi:

Facing the Forests, for soprano, accordion and percussion, takes its name from A. B. Yehoshua’s eponymous 1963 novella. Yehoshua’s Facing the Forests (Mul Ha-ye’arot) tells the tale of a young history student who takes a job as a fire watcher in a forest south of Jerusalem. Sensing that the stillness of the trees conceals an ominous secret, he becomes increasingly obsessed with his assistant, a mute, aging Palestinian man. As the story unfolds, the watchman discovers that the ruins of a Palestinian village lie buried beneath the forest he is charged with protecting. On the final night of his assignment, he looks away as his assistant sets the forest ablaze, letting the contours of the buried village reemerge. Facing the Forests stirred much controversy upon its publication. It was among the first works of Hebrew literature to present a critical perspective on Zionist discourse and to confront Israel’s denial of the Palestinian national-historical narrative. Yehoshua provided a powerful, and, in retrospect, prophetic allegory for the devastation that the conflict over the land will bring about if ignored.

In my piece, commissioned by KIMI Ensemble, I do not attempt a to create a program music retelling of Yehoshua’s narrative. Instead, I focus on the moment of psychological turn in the protagonist’s perception. What interested me was exploring the process of transformation: what brings us to the fire, rather than the fire itself. For this reason, I avoided setting Yehoshua’s original text. Inspired by the story’s thematic concern with silence and voice, I instead created a new text composed entirely of Hebrew synonyms for the word “silence.” The Hebrew language contains a wealth of terms within this semantic field, each carrying its own nuance, expressing shades of quiet, restraint, or stillness. In the composition, these words recur in a collage-like manner, treated as sonic objects, emphasizing their intrinsic meaning and sonority rather than as semantic chains. The piece enacts a gradual linguistic and expressive shift: from the evocation of a serene, seemingly peaceful landscape to a forceful imperative—an act of silencing as violence.

The text for this piece comprises synonyms for silence in Hebrew. 

(Dumiya)  דומיה

(Sheket)  שקט

(Cheresh)  חרש

(Shetek)  שתק

(Has)  הס

(Dmama)  דממה

(Dumam)  דומם

(Dmi)  דמי

(Elem)  אלם

(Sha)  שה

(Shti-ka)  שתיקה

Berlin, October 2025

Upprunalegt andlit (2026)

Guðmundur Steinn Gunnarsson

Um verkið frá tónskáldi:

Þetta verk er unnið út frá þýðingu Árna Björns Árnasonar á ljóði eftir japanska zen meistarann Dogen Zenji. Það heitir „Ljóð um svip hins upprunalega“ en tilbrigði við hugtakið upprunalegt andlit er að finna víðsvegar í textum um Zen/Chan/Son/Thien Búddisma. Dogen er sagður hafa komið með Caodong Chan eða Soto Zen iðkunina frá Kína á Song tímabilinu. Verkið hefur verið lengi á teikniborðinu og hef ég átt í samtali við meðlimi Kima um nokkurt skeið og fengið ýmis góð ráð frá þeim í ferlinu. Tilurð verksins er studd af starfslaunasjóði listamanna.

詠本来面目

Honrai no menmoku wo yomu

春は花  (Haru wa hana)

夏ほととぎす  (natsu hototogisu)

秋は月  (aki wa tsuki)

冬雪きえで  (fuyu yuki kiede)

すずしかりけり  (Suzushi kari keri)

Dogen Zenji

Ljóð um svip hins upprunalega

Á vorin, blóm

sumrin, gaukar

á haustin, tunglið

veturna, snjór – og bráðnar ekki;

hverja árstíð, blátt áfram, hviklaust.

Þýðandi Árni Björn Árnason