Shimmering heat, a gentle wind. A car drives along a highway and disappears over the horizon. The beginning of the solo double bass piece things happening refers to the impression of a David Lynch film scene in the Mexican desert. Borboudakis constructs spaces. Sound spaces, spaces of association. Situations and relationships, moods and images, texts, words, and myths inspire the composer. This creation of sounds is closely linked to various processes of transformation, particularly electronic techniques. This can be understood in the five solo works presented here. Noises, tones, phrases, motifs, chords, and gestures become sound aggregates. These move from one state to the next, rebel against one another, and are precisely localizable. Long-standing friendships with individual musicians of the der/gelbe/klang ensemble, intensive collaboration, and experimentation with the possibilities of each instrument allowed Borboudakis to tailor the pieces to their individual needs. Thus, each piece also tells its own story. These are atmospheric images that confront the performers with their own limits – physical and mental – and take the listener on a journey. Synthetic alienation processes deprive the sound of its physicality, splitting it. This important stylistic device creates intensity and inner tension.
Minas Borboudakis was born in Heraklion, Crete, in 1974. He has lived in Germany since 1992. He studied piano and composition in Munich and Hamburg. His work has been honored with the Christoph and Stephan Kaske Foundation Prize and the Bavarian Art Prize, among others. In his compositions, he explores philosophical and mythological questions – for him, composing is a way to engage in dialogue with humanistic themes and to reinterpret them in the present day. His musical idiom oscillates between emotion and intellect, poetics and realism. His music is characterized by impulsiveness, microtonality, rich timbres, and expressive gestures. His work focuses on major cycles such as ROAI I–V, a discussion of flow according to Heraclitus's phrase »Panta Rhei«, and Cycloids I–III for keyboard instruments on the question of circling and constantly mutating repetition. In photonic constructions I–III (for orchestra and ensemble formations) he presents the dual nature of light through oscillating sounds. In addition to numerous solo, chamber music and orchestral works, musical theatre plays a central role, for example liebe.nur liebe (2007, Bavarian State Opera), Enheduanna (2015, Glasgow School of Art) or Z (2018, Athens National Opera). Borboudakis' music is performed in leading European concert halls such as the Berlin Philharmonic and the Elbphilharmonie, as well as at major festivals and concert series such as the Bregenz Festival and the Bavarian Radio's musica viva. Performers of his music include the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, the Zurich Tonhalle Orchestra, the Orchestra Sinfonica Nazionale della RAI, the Vienna Symphony Orchestra, the Bavarian State Orchestra, the Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra, and the Oslo Philharmonic Orchestra, as well as artists such as Zubin Mehta, Kent Nagano, Jonathan Nott, and Constantinos Carydis. As a lecturer and music educator, he develops projects for young creative artists with various institutions. Minas Borboudakis has been a full member of the Bavarian Academy of Fine Arts since 2022.
der/gelbe/klang is dedicated to contemporary music in its entire aesthetic range, curious, experimental, and always searching for contemporary forms of expression. Founded in 2020, the ensemble quickly became an important protagonist of New Music in Germany. Recordings were made for Bayerischer Rundfunk and the NEOS label; they have played for ZDF / ARTE. der/gelbe/klang The ensemble performed the music of Olav Lervik for F. W. Murnau's silent film classic Nosferatu – A Symphony of Horror. Guest performances have taken them to Austria, France, Azerbaijan, and Switzerland. Numerous works have been written for the ensemble, including compositions by Anahita Abbasi, Vykintas Baltakas, and Valerio Sannicandro. Guest conductors have included Vladimir Jurowski, Emilio Pomàrico, Pierre-André Valade, and Vimbayi Kaziboni. der/gelbe/klang is also active in musical theatre, so there is a regular cooperation with the Bayerischen Theaterakademie August Everding, including a highly acclaimed performance of Philipp Venables' chamber opera 4.48 Psychose. Direct contact with composers of the younger and youngest generation is fundamentally important to the ensemble. The development of cross-genre projects, especially the connection with visual elements, is also central. Such an expansion of the concept of the concert is essential for the ensemble – this conviction also led to the choice of the name. der/gelbe/klang, based on Wassily Kandinsky's ingenious concept of a holistic "stage composition". In 2021 der/gelbe/klang awarded the Bavarian Art Prize.