NYKY Ensemble: Exploring microchromatic harmonies and just intonation
Join NYKY Ensemble exploring the vivid colours of just intonation.
SibA doctoral researcher Marc Sabat (DocMus Applied Study) is a Berlin-based Ukrainian-Canadian composer and violinist who has been working with rational or just intonation (JI) for many years, making music for solo instruments, chamber formations, orchestras, and electronic instruments. His research project is called ”Chords, melodies: a look at harmony by numbers”, focussing on developing useful tools for musicians and composers working with fine differences of intonation.
In this project, Sabat teaches the NYKY Ensemble students various strategies and approaches to tuning and colouring microtonal harmonies by ear. In addition, guest composer-performer and SibA doctoral researcher Sebastian Dumitrescu on Lumatone joins a small orchestra of acoustic instruments to realise Marc Sabat’s ”Flows from the Tree”, a new, ongoing work for open instrumentation based on an 81-tone pitch gamut derived from the row of harmonic partials. The concert is rounded out with classic JI works from American pioneers Pauline Oliveros and James Tenney, among others.
Programme
- James Tenney: Critical Band
- open instrumentation, minimum 9 players, max. 15 (17′)
- Pauline Oliveros: Sonic Meditations (selection)
- open instrumentation
- Marc Sabat: Flows from “The Tree” (2025-)
- for Lumatone, 1 fl (bass and alto), 1 ob, 1 clar, 1 bassoon, harp, trbn, Fr. horn, 2 violins, viola, cello, double bass
- TBA, open instrumentation
Changes are possible.
Further information: Jaakko Kilpeläinen, jaakko.kilpelainen@uniarts.fi
NYKY Ensemble
NYKY Ensemble is a contemporary music group of Uniarts Helsinki’s Sibelius Academy, which serves as a forum for contemporary music projects and provides perspectives on the trends and techniques of our time, such as expanded playing techniques, live electronics, microtonality, minimalism or cross-disciplinary artistic cooperation. The composition of the ensemble depends on the pieces to be presented at any given time, and the visiting supervisor in each concert period is a musician or ensemble specialising in contemporary music.
SibA doctoral researcher Marc Sabat (DocMus Applied Study) is a Berlin-based Ukrainian-Canadian composer and violinist who has been working with rational or just intonation (JI) for many years, making music for solo instruments, chamber formations, orchestras, and electronic instruments. His research project is called ”Chords, melodies: a look at harmony by numbers”, focussing on developing useful tools for musicians and composers working with fine differences of intonation.
In this project, Sabat teaches the NYKY Ensemble students various strategies and approaches to tuning and colouring microtonal harmonies by ear. In addition, guest composer-performer and SibA doctoral researcher Sebastian Dumitrescu on Lumatone joins a small orchestra of acoustic instruments to realise Marc Sabat’s ”Flows from the Tree”, a new, ongoing work for open instrumentation based on an 81-tone pitch gamut derived from the row of harmonic partials. The concert is rounded out with classic JI works from American pioneers Pauline Oliveros and James Tenney, among others.
Programme
- James Tenney: Critical Band
- open instrumentation, minimum 9 players, max. 15 (17′)
- Pauline Oliveros: Sonic Meditations (selection)
- open instrumentation
- Marc Sabat: Flows from “The Tree” (2025-)
- for Lumatone, 1 fl (bass and alto), 1 ob, 1 clar, 1 bassoon, harp, trbn, Fr. horn, 2 violins, viola, cello, double bass
- TBA, open instrumentation
Changes are possible.
Further information: Jaakko Kilpeläinen, jaakko.kilpelainen@uniarts.fi
NYKY Ensemble
NYKY Ensemble is a contemporary music group of Uniarts Helsinki’s Sibelius Academy, which serves as a forum for contemporary music projects and provides perspectives on the trends and techniques of our time, such as expanded playing techniques, live electronics, microtonality, minimalism or cross-disciplinary artistic cooperation. The composition of the ensemble depends on the pieces to be presented at any given time, and the visiting supervisor in each concert period is a musician or ensemble specialising in contemporary music.