soyuz21 - contemporary music ensemble zürich:
Sascha Armbruster, Saxophon
Mats Scheidegger, E-Gitarre
Philipp Meier, Keyboard
Joao Pacheco, Schlagzeug
German Toro-Pérez, Klangregie
Isai Angst, Klangregie

Programm:
Catalina Peralta (Colombia) - Azure Song and a Sibylline Lullaby (2023, WP)
Carolina Noguera (Colombia) - Shrinking space I (2023, WP)
Rodolfo Acosta R. (Colombia) - Trapped Entanglements (2023, WP)
Pepe Gavilondo (Cuba) - Randomnicity (2023, WP)
German Toro-Pérez (Switzerland/Colombia) - Ave bicéfala (2023, WP)

This project originates from the idea of Germán Toro Pérez, Mats Scheidegger and Viviana Ramos to create a common space where the sound and cultural worlds of Europe and Latin America can conceptually and concretely touch each other. Thus began the exploration and search for texts, authors, music and visual exhibitions that could bring us closer together. Some Latin American artists inspired us, especially the Colombian artist Delcy Morelos with her work Earthly Paradise (2022) at the Venice Biennale. "In this work, the earth rises from the ground, and masses of earth surround the viewer's body. The visitor can smell the aroma of the earth mixed with hay, cassava flour, cocoa powder, and spices such as cloves and cinnamon, while also feeling the moisture, temperature, texture, and darkness of the earth. While this installation recalls the minimalist aesthetic of works such as Walter De Maria's New York Earth Room (1977), Morelos' use of earth is informed by Andean and Amazonian Indian cosmologies and conveys the notion that nature is not something inert that we can access and control at will from an external and exceptional position, but that we are earthly beings - we become, live, die, and decay with and as the earth. As the earth permeates and influences our bodies and senses, our humanity takes on a new form: We understand that we always become humus, as the Latin etymology of the word "human" reminds us. "*

This seems to us so fundamental and valid for all human beings that this is the ground of our project. If we trace the arc to Switzerland, isn't every artistic action permeated by the smell of pizza, chocolate, cheese or barbecue? Scents and smells as inspiration, as basic experience of art? Some artists like Dieter Roth or Joseph Beuys have more than helped themselves to this.

Unfortunately, music is far away from these concrete experiences of meaning due to its abstraction. It seeks its way through the ear, sublimating, refining. The ensemble Soyuz21 is by its openness to the new almost emblematic for the exploration of this research work. The members of the ensemble are all actively involved in the further development of the expressive possibilities on their instruments, be it as interpreters, as sound makers, as improvisers or conceptualists.

Germán Toro Pérez, as a composer, has found a refinement of sound language where the extra-musical opens up. He is a living bridge builder who fuses Latin American and European musical heritage. Perhaps to put it another way: a European soundscape, shaped by his involvement with the language of Latin America and with electronic music, but which, through his Colombian roots, opens up beyond music to the extra-musical: one experiences in his music a breathing, an eavesdropping, a hearing of the beyond.

These fundamentals form the starting point for this cultural exchange Switzerland // Colombia // Cuba. Viviana Ramos has now selected six Colombian and Cuban composers who will compose new works for Soyuz21. There will be a wide range, from the more improvisational, graphically notated, to the electronic, to precisely counted compositions. The commissions to Colombian composers Carolina Nogueras, Catalina Peralte and Rodolfo Acosta, as well as the commissions to Cuban composers Luis A. Aguirre, Jose Victor Gavilondo and Viviana Ramos, will be the responsibility of Ensemble Soyuz21. In this way, the ensemble will not only be able to increase its repertoire, but also to develop a different mentality and approach.

The Swiss music will be characterized on the one hand by Germán Toro Pérez, and on the other hand new works will be created by Stefan Wirth and André Meier. Other works have been selected by Mauro Hertig and Felix Nussbaumer. The fine-tuning of the programs will then take place in the fall, when the new works to be created become foreseeable.

If we have previously seen the earth as the producer of life, the metal is also a material of strength and permanence, which is present in the works of many Latin American artists, such as the work of Feliza Bursztyn. Colombian sculptor, pioneer in the work with metal and its installation in space. Her work has been exhibited several times in Colombia and in Cuba: Baila Mecánica and part of her last work titled Color - a series made of scrap metal and colorful parts of crashed cars - in 1981, after which the artist returned to Colombia, only to flee soon after because the Colombian armed forces were after her, accusing her of being a messenger between the Cuban leadership and the M-19. For this reason, she had to go into exile in Paris, where she died of exhaustion or sadness in 1982, as Gabriel Garcia Marquez wrote in one of his articles at the time. Her first major solo exhibition was held in 2022 at the Museum Susch in Switzerland.
The work of this Colombian sculptor also includes very interesting works related to movement and sound, as in her work "Las histéricas", where the sculpture "shakes and shouts and affects the space and the viewer", as stated in an interview with the author on the occasion of the premiere of this sculpture. In this sense, and with the intention of being a "bridge" that mediates between the two cultures and the extremes of the same gaze, we will try to establish dialogues with some works of this Colombian sculptor and some of her works that are still in the public space in Colombia, such as "Homage to Gandhi" from 1971 in Bogota. Thus, an open-air concert will be held on the site of the sculpture with the ensemble Soyuz 21 and its guests.

We hope that this project will create for the participating artists, students, universities and guests a place that is nothing other than our moment as artists, as contemporary people, imbued with the desire for refinement, expression and inspiration.