“Utopías”, Sigma Project at the Miramón Matinées

This Saturday, November 17th, the Matinées de Miramón season welcomes the saxophone quartet Sigma Project to its stage at the Basque Orchestra headquarters. The concert, bearing the title of Utopías, is presented as a coming-together of tradition and modernity: in this experience, the saxophone becomes a translator of sonorities, a vehicle for the expression of ancient senses with new languages.

Understanding the transcription as "musical renaissance", SIGMA PROJECT will perform several transcriptions for saxophone quartet of pieces from the 14th, 16th and 17th centuries by the contemporary Italian composer Salvatore Sciarrino from his cycle Pagine (2001) and Canzionere da Scarlatti (2002). One particularly outstanding feature of these transcriptions is the almost educational slant with respect to the original.

Completing the programme are works by Félix Ibarrondo and Ramon Lazkano dedicated to SIGMA PROJECT. Aikan, composed by Félix Ibarrondo in 2009, and Jalkin by Ramon Lazkano, performed for the first time that same year, complete "Utopías". According to Ibarrondo, Aikan (a completely made-up word) naturally fits into the mosaic of his work; these are "internal impulses that express themselves and overflow in sound and find reality in the very particular timbre of the saxophone". Ramon Lazkano defines his Jalkin, a commission from the Fundación BBVA for Sigma Project, as "an attempt to capture the sediment of a sound that links us to our memory and inscribes us in time". This Saturday both composers will take to the stage at the BNO headquarters to present their works to the audience.

With the name of SIGMA PROJECT, in 2007 the saxophone soloists Andrés Gomis, Josetxo Silguero, Ángel Soria and Miguel Romero, firmly committed to present-day musical creation, set themselves the task of causing a revolution in the Spanish chamber music scene. Their quest to update both the repertoire for saxophone and the space and mise-en-scène of the concerts has attracted the interest of composers who, in close collaboration, have proceeded to give highly unusual performances. Always open to new projects, collaborations and interrelation with other disciplines, SIGMA PROJECT continues to stand out for its reflection, study and investigation of sound, in a constant search for and application of new technologies. Soon to be performed are the concerts IZARBIL by Félix Ibarrondo with the ORCAM and Concert per a quatre, by Josep Maria Mestres Quadreny with the OBC, both composed for saxophone quartet and symphony orchestra, and dedicated to SIGMA PROJECT.