Tickets £31 // Concession £25 // Under 30 £5
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Synaesthesis:
Artūras Kažimėkas bass clarinet
Simonas Kaupinis tuba
Arnas Kmieliauskas cello
Donatas Butkevičius contrabass
Marta Finkelštein piano

Paulius Varonenka lighting designer
Light projection created by Akvile Anglickaite

Žibuoklė Martinaitytė (Lithuania, 1973)
Hadal Zone (2020-2022) 65’ UK Premiere

An immersive journey into the deepest zone of the ocean.

Hadal Zone, written for bass clarinet, tuba, violoncello, contrabass, piano and electronics, seeks to plumb the lower ranges of these instruments, shaping a listening environment that is defined as much by sound and vibration as it is by the musical intent of the composer. Performed by the adventurous Lithuanian ensemble Synaesthesis and featuring recorded samples of the San Francisco-based choral group Volti (conducted by Robert Geary), the hour-long work takes its title from the scientific name for the region of the ocean that extends below 6,000 meters, where sunlight can never reach.

“These instruments are rarely featured on their own,” composer Žibuoklė Martinaitytė explains, in her liner notes to Hadal Zone, “but rather, they serve as a backbone for harmonic structures. I’m taking them into the limelight […] Darkness as we perceive it is not differentiated. The same can be said for low frequencies, low vibrations of sound; what we usually hear is some indistinguishable hum or a murmur, and we mostly feel the palpable vibrations of those sounds through our body.”

Performed live, Hadal Zone represents a gradual descent through the five deep regions of the ocean — Epipelagic, Mesopelagic, Bathypelagic, Abyssopelagic and Hadopelagic. The concert hall gradually plunges into near-darkness with the help of a site-specific light installation by visual artist Akvilė Anglickaitė, looking to transport the audience into more meditative states of mind.

View the project trailer below:

Produced by hcmf// as part of The Current Climate; supported by Lithuanian Culture Institute and Music Information Centre Lithuania; also supported by hcmf// Benefactors Allan and Mo Tennant

Hadal Zone was composed through the generous support of the Guggenheim Fellowship (2020). Thanks to all the musicians who recorded samples for the electronics: the choral voices of Volti (conductor Robert Geary); Eric Alatorre; Sergijus Kirsenka; Donatas Bagurskas and Andrius Žiūra

Photo: © Matas Gineika

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