Second Nature

'Second Nature' for alto saxophone, violoncello and marimba explores the coexistence of opposites.
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Everything has two sides: black and white, yin and yang.
In music, too, contrasting forces meet: harmony and atonality, clear rhythm and free timing, melodic lines and seemingly random sequences of notes.
The familiar, beautiful sound of an instrument encounters distortion, noise and extended playing techniques that reveal another side of the same instrument.

These sound worlds repeatedly interrupt one another.
A melody is broken apart, a rhythmic structure loses its footing, a rough sound suddenly reveals something delicate.
Equally, a fragile, quiet passage can be abruptly interrupted by a harsh, forceful saxophone multiphonic.
What seemed certain a moment ago becomes unstable; conversely, instability can give way to familiarity.
These opposites are not clear-cut: noise can contain beauty, and order can harbour unrest.
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Here lies a connection to life: beautiful moments can be cut short by bad news.
Conversely, even in difficult times, moments of joy, closeness or lightness emerge – sometimes quite unexpectedly.
We seek continuity and experience disruption, create order and encounter the unpredictable.
Second Nature allows these forces to coexist, intertwine and struggle with one another – without ultimately resolving them into a harmonious whole.