Sirene Segmenti

TITLE:  Sirene Segmenti
CAT# (YEAR COMPOSED): 101 (2017)
INSTRUMENTATION: soprano solo and choir
PAGES: 20
DURATION (APPROX): ca. 6’36
PREMIERE: Premiered by AuditivVokal Dresden (Olaf Katzer, conductor) on 15.09.17 in Dortmund during Chor.com as part of the program „Vox populi?!“

Sirene segmenti is an homage to Demetrio Stratos and a recognition of the United Nations “International Day of Democracy”.

Since antiquity, sirens were amorously dangerous creatures, who, part-bird and part-woman, lured sailors with their enchanting calls and songs to shipwreck on their rocky coasts. More fitting for my piece than Homer or Joyce, is a passage from the short story by Franz Kafka, The Silence of the Sirens (Das Schweigen der Sirenen, 1917), “Now the Sirens have a still more fatal weapon than their song, namely their silence. And though admittedly such a thing never happened, it is still conceivable that someone might possibly have escaped from their singing; but from their silence certainly never.”