From Shadows into Light

Together with instruments and voices from the near-East, Ensemble Variances alternates delicate maqam sounds with contemporary sensibilities, bringing the ancient melodies into a dialogue and productive creative tension with the music of our time. Both the traditional and contemporary works on this programme play with the idea of emerging light.

The ‘orient’, represented here by the works of Turkish sufi Mustafa Buhurizade Itri (1640-1712) and traditional Turkish Ilahis of tasavvuf (sufism), seek after it in their texts and with a remarkable consistency, while contemporary works show a more dialectical relationship: in Les Rameurs obscurs de la barque de Rê, the passage to light occurs after being immersed in shadow, and in the case of Elif, as the eternal truth of first utterance buried beneath the swirling sands of time and cultural overlay.