Constellations and Fingerprints

Music
Urmas Sisask

Piano
Vladimir Ivanov

Stage direction, choreography and dance
Konstantin Grouss and Misha Humm


Special thanks to
Alexei Lubimov for the opportunity to participate in the program “Subscription No. 23: Fairy-Tale Journeys: Estonia” at the Rachmaninov Hall of the Moscow Conservatory
With support from the “No Translations #2” festival and the “Art-Residence” International Culture project


About the composition.

The countless configurations that can be formed from four points nevertheless leave room for the arbitrary selection of a single one.
The compositional combination of elements gives rise to free associations that go beyond the confines of a specific geometric structure. The musical grid transforms the performers’ emotional response into movement, the outline of which is open-ended.
The human body, with its flexible physical structure and mental framework, provides excellent material for exploring all manner of forms, which are free to emerge and find their place in space.
Technically, the composition and configuration of the musical sections can be altered even during the performance. The same applies to the dance. The movement technique spans a broad spectrum, from modern dance to butoh, but is governed by a single concept: an emotional and reflective correspondence and the mutual interpenetration of inner and outer space.

Alexei Borisovich Lubimov, People’s Artist of the Russian Federation

The next concert in the “Fairy-Tale Journeys” series, presented by People’s Artist of Russia, pianist, and professor Alexei Lyubimov, is dedicated to contemporary Estonian music. With the exception of Arvo Pärt, who has lived and worked in Germany for several decades and has achieved worldwide fame, the names of the other composers featured in the program are virtually unknown to Russian audiences.
Tiit Kurvits, Lepo Sumera, and Urmas Sisak are composers of various schools, each with their own aesthetic platforms. L. Sumera—a pioneer of electroacoustic music in Estonia—has also explored dodecaphony and minimalism. U. Sisak is a representative of musical symbolism and the inventor of his own system (the so-called planetary scale, calculated according to the trajectories of the planets in the solar system).
As is tradition, on October 22 in the Rachmaninov Hall, the renowned pianist will be joined on stage by his students and younger colleagues from the Department of Contemporary and Historical Performance, as well as young winners of international competitions: pianists Sergei Kasprouv, Olga Pashchenko, Elizaveta Miller, Alexei Grots, Vladimir Grindenko, and Vladimir Ivanov.


Our performance was not originally part of the planned program. However, the piece set to music by Urmas Sisask was ready for its premiere and perfectly aligned with the dates and theme of the Rachmaninov Hall’s current program.
Therefore, the first performance took place on October 20, 2011, effectively serving as an unplanned intervention into the existing program and the Rachmaninov Hall itself, which, due to its specific characteristics, is not an ideal venue for theatrical performances with dynamic stage design. Nevertheless, the performance took place.
You can witness this for yourself; I've decided to publish this historic performance in its entirety.