Kottos (1977) — Iannis Xenakis

Cookies (2024) — Oliver Korte

Aural Breakthroughs Ensemble (2025) — Collective Improvisation

Trio Improvisations — Chris Stover, Thomas Green & Karst de Jong

Modular Dialogues — Karst de Jong, Untrymaew & Sathapat Tum Teeranitayapap

In Alice in Wonderland, the Duchess tells Alice: “Take care of the sense and the sounds will take care of themselves.” Making music—whether composing, improvising, or performing—is very much about letting things happen: letting the sounds flow, taking care of the sense, so that the sounds will indeed take care of themselves. Tonight’s concert brings together musicians who have mostly met only during this week’s activities. Their sounds are shaped by perception, awareness, clarity, and the wisdom of their experiences.

We open with Iannis Xenakis’s Kottos, a monumental solo work for cello composed in 1977. Named after the mythical giant with a hundred arms, the piece unleashes immense physicality through extreme glissandi, dense textures, and unrelenting force. In Kottos, Xenakis pushes the instrument to its very limits, conjuring music that feels at once primordial and architectural—an encounter with something vast, unruly, and awe-inspiring.

From this raw intensity, we move into the playful sound-world of Oliver Korte’s Cookies for electric viola and electric guitar. Unfolding in three psychedelic phases—intoxicated, increasingly frenzied, and finally slightly dizzy—the piece explores unexpected timbral blends through amplification, distortion, loops, glissandi, and microtonality. The rarely paired duo gradually fuses into one organism, baking their sounds together into a hallucinatory, slightly mischievous whole.

After these striking contrasts, the stage opens to collective exploration with the Aural Breakthroughs Ensemble. Over the course of the week, the ensemble has been learning how to open their ears to one another and to the world around them. Their improvisations are born from trust, attentiveness, and a heightened sense of listening, shaping music that is both fragile and alive.

The evening then continues with the trio of Chris Stover, Thomas Green, and Karst de Jong, who bring together trombone, mixed electronics, and keyboard. Their improvisations weave resonance, breath, and circuitry into fluid dialogues that balance structure and spontaneity.

Finally, Karst de Jong and Sathapat Tum Teeranitayapap close the program with a duo of keyboards and modular synths. Their music embraces volatility and surprise, shaping soundscapes that shimmer between control and chaos, sense and sound—an apt reflection of tonight’s Alice-inspired adventure.

Performers

Karst de Jong

Yong Siew Toh Conservatory of Music

Associate Professor Dr. Chris Stover and Thomas Green

Queensland Conservatorium, Griffith University

Guest Performers

Sathapat Tum Teeranitayapap

Monotone

UNTRYMAEW

Student Participants

Chavanin Khemsom (Flute)

Danielle Yang (Classical Guitar)

Hayden Butt (Clarinet)

Jovelle Ong (Violin)

Liu Yiduo (Cello)

Low Kim Ven (Trombone)

Nichakan Thanarakpokin (Violin)

Siraphat Chomphupol (Marimba)

Watcharaphong (Marimba)