The sound of (new) music in Lucerne

Imagine. You’re a composer in the early stages of your career. Your works are being well received, but you still fall under the ‘up and coming’ banner. Then, one day, a commission comes in from Switzerland’s historic Lucerne Festival.

It’s the stuff of dreams. However, it’s also what has happened this year to three young composers, courtesy of the Lucerne Festival’s recent work with the I&I Foundation, a brand new initiative by violinist Ilya Gringolts and conductor Ilan Volkov to match-make concert promoters, orchestras and festivals with those 'up-and-coming' composers. The aim is to speed up and simplify the commissioning process, connecting commissioners with composers and interesting works that are ready to be premiered.

‘The foundation was very much a Covid baby,’ says Gringolts, 'It was set up to promote new music, bring it closer to the audiences and performers, and support new composers at a time when there are so many exciting voices, but also when the concert activity that there is feels in danger.’

One way this will happen is via the foundation itself commissioning works to enter a pot of ready-composed pieces. This means that curators know exactly what they’re getting – and that the composer has already been paid. Right now, though, the foundation’s principle commissioning method, and the modus operandi for the Lucerne commissions, is via match-making specific artists with specific composers. This also helps attract the necessary funding, which is predominantly through private donors. ‘Attracting funding for new music can be difficult,’ explains Gringolts, ‘but once you show a concrete project, and put a face to a name, the chances are considerably higher’.

Trumpeter Aaron Akugbo (left) premieres They know what they’ve done to us by Joy Guidry (right) on 30 August.

Akugbo: ©Olivia Da Costa/Lucerne Festival, Guidry: ©Verena Bruening

All six of the festival’s 'Debut' artists were given the option of commissioning a new work for their recital, three of whom ultimately took up the opportunity. ‘First there was an email from the festival and ourselves, introducing the foundation and explaining very briefly how we worked’ outlines Gringolts. ‘Then we continued conversations directly, and suggested composers we thought would be interesting for the artists. So the festival has provided the stage, and we have provided the know-how, done the match-making, and also of course financed the commissions.’

The artists themselves are clearly thrilled, as Edinburgh-born trumpeter Aaron Akugbo – for whom this was his first professional one-to-one project with a composer – makes clear as he recounts being introduced to US bassoonist and composer Joy Guidry, who has composed They know what they’ve done to us for trumpet and electronics for him (due to be performed 30 August). ‘When I started looking through Joy’s compositions, their performances as a bassoonist, but also their story as another musician of colour, and I felt we would be able to relate with each other, and indeed that became the foundation of the piece they wrote,’ he says with warmth. ‘I feel very fortunate for this opportunity to just have landed in front of me, and the biggest thing is the fact that it’s so personal. Joy and I were able to have conversations, and the piece they’ve come up with is profoundly meaningful and personal.

‘Musically, it’s the first time I’ve performed either with electronics or from a graphic score, and whereas the rest of my Lucerne programme is trumpet and piano, this piece has me suddenly standing on my own with this electronic track, and almost improvising as I react to the sounds, and obviously each performance is unique. It’s very exciting.’ Akugbo also plans to perform it at Glasgow Cathedral Festival in the autumn.

Another artist-composer pairing is between British pianist Mishka Rushdie Momen and French-born, London-based soprano-composer Heloïse Werner, who has written An Inviting Object for solo piano, for which the brief was for something that could work as a prelude to Schubert’s Fantasie (25 August). ‘I’m very excited about the performance,’ says Werner. ‘This was the first time I had received a commission from outside the UK, although there have been more since. The Lucerne festival is very prestigious, so I feel very lucky to have this opportunity, and with such an amazing musician who has been super throughout the process. The piece is about eight minutes in length, so it fits quite well in a recital environment and can hopefully also have a life beyond Lucerne.’

As for the future, the hope – and indeed expectation – is that next year more of Lucerne’s young artists will take up the offer. And this is important not only because of the impact it has clearly made on this year’s Debut musicians, but because Gringolts believes that, ultimately, for new music to flourish and enter the canon, quantity is key.

‘One hundred years ago, the music performed in concert halls was primarily written by living composers, and most of that music didn’t survive’ he says. ‘But what did survive is what we now call the masterpieces, which is why it’s not very fair to modern composers to compare them to those works. If you treat new music with kid gloves, it will never get the access. People love things that they know, and one trend I see is that in places where promoters trust their audiences and programme a lot of new music, after two or three years, the audiences in those places are very excited about it. So the best we can do is to just keep playing and promoting a lot of new music, trusting that the audience will follow. In my experience, it does.’