Semibreve 2026: Fennesz & Oscar Jockel

This year’s Semibreve features many high-calibre performances and collaborations, but Saffron on Grey heightens expectations in a special way. Premiered this year with great fanfare at the Berlin Philharmonie, this is a piece that sparks the imagination, creating an inventive dialogue which we rarely hear, between electronic and acoustic music. Nothing exists merely as an accessory or decoration: everything is intertwined in a symbiotic whole where acoustic instruments mimic digital textures, Fennesz’s electronica and processed guitar follow Oscar Jockel’s conducting as if they were just another instrument in the ensemble, and pastoral lyricism emerges from beautiful storms of computerized noise. This is a happy and emotionally epic conclusion, which comes as no surprise from two musicians and composers who habitually transgress the boundaries imposed on their musical languages and aesthetics. Saffron on Grey is, for this reason too, a subtle hymn to artistic non-conformity, and a perfect finale to an edition of Semibreve.

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Co-curated as part of TIMES (The Independent Movement For Electronic Scenes), a program co-funded by the European Union.